


The Consequences of a Crash

by happygiraffe



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Blood and Gore, Eventual Happy Ending, Fever, Gen, Guest appearances by Imaginary Qui-Gon Jinn, Hurt Obi-Wan, Hurt/Comfort, Infection, M/M, Major Character Injury, Near Death Experiences, Panic Attacks, Pre-Slash, Protective Anakin, Shippy Gen, Sickfic, Whump, attachments galore, graphic depictions of injury, it's a hot mess but they're trying dammit, now with art!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-01
Updated: 2016-10-15
Packaged: 2018-05-30 10:34:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 31,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6420283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/happygiraffe/pseuds/happygiraffe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>Anakin doesn’t remember how they lost control of the ship.</em> A newly made knight and his former master crash on an unknown world and must hang on until help arrives. Obi-Wan is badly hurt, Anakin's just trying to hold his shit together</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was THIS CLOSE to naming the fic "Another Happy Landing" by the way.
> 
> Content warning for blood, panic attacks, needles. If you have any other squicks you want to ask me about before you read, go for it, I'm happy to tell you which chapters things are in if you'd like to avoid them.
> 
> For one-shots, fan art, and more, find me at happygiraffe.tumblr.com!

Anakin doesn’t remember how they lost control of the ship.

Right about now, the only thing he knows is the smell of coolant that’s making the ground spin. Dull aches tease at the corners of his consciousness but they aren’t real pain, not yet. He is vaguely aware that he should feel something, probably unbridled terror, but in this moment he doesn’t. In this moment he is just… _alive_. And it’s amazing. He and Obi-Wan had thought they were going to die. _He and—_

_[Obi-Wan?]_

_(While one is rejoicing in life, the other is reflecting on death.)_

Anakin braces his hands against the…something, because he hasn’t really stopped to figure out where he is yet, and pushes himself towards a sitting position. The legs come next, folding them up under himself, frustrated by the time it takes, and thrusting upwards, standing now, stumbling, and then not standing anymore. Anakin drops to his knees and retches up the contents of his stomach, which is a particularly revolting experience because the sickly sweet of coolant still tickles his nose. But when it’s finally over, his mind feels clearer.

He tries to stand again, because he has to, if he’s going to find—

_[Obi-Wan?]_

_(There is no death, there is the Force. But this is not the Force, this is a ragged, sickening pain that screams that he is going to die here by himself. There’s no lonelier feeling in the world.)_

Anakin reaches out into the Force, but the training bond just buzzes innocently, Obi-Wan is alive and nearby, but he is not answering.

Standing is starting to feel like a more manageable task. Anakin wipes his dirty face on his dirty sleeve and tries again.

_[Obi-Wan!?]_

(So _meone is calling, someone is crackling, staticky like a bad holovid. He can’t make it out, let alone respond, but at least it takes his attention away from the pain.)_

Anakin knows his former master would never purposely ignore him at a time like this. A little ball of panic starts to crackle in his chest, dampened by the numbness for now, maybe, but getting stronger. He finally attempts to take stock of where he is. It’s the cockpit of the familiar cruiser, but bits of quartz-glass from the windshield cover everything, glittering bright red in the dim light. There’s red speckled all up Anakin’s arms too but he doesn’t really remember why.

He climbs out of the cockpit and nearly wipes out because where his foot expects a short step down there is nothing but a gaping, smoking hole. He catches himself by throwing a hand against the wall, turning his foot at a funny angle. He can see broad moonlight illuminating the smoke in the air, shining down into the ship where the durasteel hull has come apart at the seam.

Anakin struggles to get his bearings in the thick, black smoke, but it seems like a huge chunk of the ship is just…gone. He tries to send feelers out into the Force, to sense Obi-Wan’s location even without their bond, but he’s not sure if it’s really the Force or just the growing ball of panic that sends him ploughing through the smoke, coughing, suddenly feeling grass and roots instead of hot metal beneath his feet.

The air he’s gulping is almost fresh now, and if he pries his stinging eyes open, he can see. He’s moving downhill, past big, leafy trees and the scattered remains of the ship. He begins picking through the rubble methodically, almost impersonally. Finally he lifts up a large panel to glance beneath it and the panel gasps.

Or rather, something gasps. Anakin’s heart jumps as he immediately lets go, causing an awful groan as the panel thuds back to its original position. Anakin runs towards the noise, nearly tripping over debris.

_[Obi-Wan!]_

_[Ana—]_

Obi-Wan is on his back, half-buried in rubble including the panel that Anakin disturbed.

“Obi-Wan!” Anakin barks as his knees hit the ground beside his former master. Obi-Wan attempts a smile which comes out more like a grimace.

“Padawan,” he murmurs.

“Are you okay?” Anakin hisses, grabbing Obi-Wan’s shoulder. The latter answers with a groan. Anakin notices hot, slick blood soaking through his glove and feels his breath hitch in his throat. Obi-Wan’s right arm and the visible part of his torso are stained dark crimson.

“I’ll get you out of here!” Anakin announces. He conducts the Force through his fingertips and sends the debris flying up into the air, unburying him.

“Anakin, wait—AH!” Obi-Wan protests as the movement rips a sizable durasteel rod out of his open chest wound. “You shouldn’t have…oh, son of a…” Fresh red blood is pouring over the black stains.

“Kriff!” Anakin yelps, letting the debris fall haphazardly a little ways off. “Obi-Wan, I’m sorry!” Anakin knows he has to stop the bleeding. Stop the—oh hells, there’s a lot of bleeding. There is no time to look for something sterile. Anakin rips a segment from his robe and hastily covers the wound. He knows he has to apply pressure. The wool has already soaked clean through, and blood is still pulsing—yes, there must be a damaged artery because that is _pulsing_ —up out of the wound. Not enough pressure. Anakin closes his eyes and wills the Force to add strength to his hands. It kicks in with a jolt.

“Anakin—“ Obi-Wan shouts. “Anakin, you’re hurting—“

Too much pressure. “I’m sorry!” he repeats. Just enough pressure. Not too much, not too much. Moderation is harder.

“You need to calm down,” Obi-Wan chides.

“I’m sorry!”

“Don’t be sorry— _argh_ —just be calm,” he pants. “Release your…fear.”

Anakin tries, but only manages to redirect his energy to other objects in the vicinity, making rocks and scraps float around them.

Obi-Wan notices. He quirks an eyebrow and manages a feeble smile.

Anakin doesn’t care, the Code and the Order can kriff themselves as long as he’s not hurting Obi-Wan anymore. There will be other times to worry about _emotion_ and _peace_.

He feels a weak tug on their training bond, a tiny flicker of soothing energy. Hells, is _Obi-Wan_ trying to comfort _him_? He’s hardly the one whose blood is starting to pool in the grass by his shoulder.

_[Are you going to be okay?]_

_[I think...are you…hurt?]_

“No. I don’t know. Not badly.” Anakin says, out loud this time since it’s obvious Obi-Wan is struggling to connect with the Force. He inhales and puts the rocks down, one by one. “What do you need?”

Obi-Wan takes some time to mull over the question. “…hurts,” he finally decides.

“What hurts? Just your chest, or…?”

Obi-Wan shakes his head like he’s not really sure.

_[Show me,]_

Obi-Wan lowers his mental shields, which weren’t at their strongest to begin with but Anakin wouldn’t have tested them without an invitation. Anakin reaches in and allows the sensation to flood through his own body – dizzy, ringing ears and jittery pain diffused all through his body, burning most brightly in the excruciating hole in his chest. Even the watered-down version of the feeling is enough to make Anakin feel like passing out.

“Does it help?” He asks through gritted teeth “Me feeling some of the pain?”

Obi-Wan shakes his head again. He’s only projecting his state onto Anakin, not sharing the burden. With a bit of guilty relief, Anakin pulls back into his own mind.

“…’s a lot of blood,” Anakin glances around at it all, on the ground and their clothes and their hands.

Obi-Wan focuses his vision on Anakin’s face, breaths coming too shallow for speech. The pressure braced against his ribcage isn’t helping. Anakin eases off, hoping to give Obi-Wan’s lungs some more room. He has no idea if it really works like that, he has no idea about any of this.

“We need bacta,” Anakin concludes. They probably need more than that, but bacta is always a good place to start. “There’s got to be some on the—” _oh right, the ship. They’d had to…crash land?_ He’s forgotten already.

 “Ana…”

“I’m going back for supplies, okay?” Anakin interrupts. “Obi-Wan?”

It _is_ a lot of blood, but he’s seen soldiers lose much more. It shouldn’t be making Obi-Wan this dizzy and pale. _Unless some of it’s internal._ Anakin feels the panic crackling in his chest again. Hypovolemic shock can kill.

 “Ana…kin,” Obi-Wan pants. And when that’s ignored, “ _Anakin,_ ”

“What?”

“Meditate with me.”

Anakin opens and closes his mouth like a Nabooian gooberfish. “But—”

Obi-Wan reaches up and grabs the wrist of Anakin’s flesh hand. The message is clear. _[Stay.]_

“Al…alright I guess.” Given the choice, Anakin tends to reach for a medpac over Force-healing. It’s in his nature; he prefers being alert, moving, helping, fixing, to the stationary task of meditation. But if Obi-Wan is going into shock, then steadying his heartrate and blood pressure is crucial. Anakin keeps his mechanical hand braced against the wound but arranges the rest of himself in a cross-legged position.

Anakin has seen healers in holovids rest their fingertips on a patient’s forehead, but he feels a bit foolish trying it. Instead he gives Obi-Wan’s hand a squeeze. They close their eyes and Anakin feels Obi-Wan’s breathing become calmer, but the connection he reaches out for is wobbly at best. Anakin’s knowledge of Force-healing doesn’t extend far beyond required military training modules, but the Living Force is stronger with him than most Jedi. He centers his thoughts and sends calm, encouraging pulses through their training bond. It seems to help.

Anakin’s mind is a curse sometimes; it was not made for meditation. As much of his childhood was spent trying to explain to Obi-Wan, long periods alone with his thoughts make his head buzz, like a psychological itch that he can’t help scratching. He has to get up and give it something to do before it drives itself mad. Obi-Wan had seldom accepted this as an excuse, and sometimes assigned extra meditation ‘for practice’ if he complained too much. Even though he is no longer a padawan, Anakin half expects to be scolded when he opens his eyes after just a short time.

At least, he’d thought it to be a short time. He looks around and sees that the three moons are almost setting with the dawn on the strange planet. The fingers entwined with his are limp. Anakin can feel in Obi-Wan’s Force signature that he isn’t comatose but well and truly asleep, thank the Force. For once, Anakin wasn’t the one who left their meditation unfinished. With that amusing thought, he collapses onto the grass beside his former master and surrenders to his own exhaustion.

 

* * *

 

The pain comes first. Then the confusion. Then the fear.

Anakin is ripped from sleep by deep aches in his muscles and a throbbing in his temple. In his first moments of wakefulness, his shields are down and all the things he hadn’t felt in last night’s chaos assault his senses. He feels the stinging scratches on his arm, the tender knot on the back of his head, shrill stabs of pain radiating from his ankle. And why—

He sits up too fast and has to close his eyes for a moment. His chest feels constricted as he struggles to remember where he is, and what could have gone so terribly wrong because it was only a diplomatic mission, wasn’t it? They should be on their way home to Coruscant but there’s grass here and blood caked up to his elbows. His blood? No, wait—

Anakin can’t breathe, nothing feels real. His former master lies beside him, apparently still resting—but he was dying, he was—and the wound—Anakin’s heart is racing. He reaches for his belt, gripping his lightsaber for reassurance. He breathes.

He has to help Obi-Wan. That’s a fact he can hold on to while he works on inhaling and exhaling. They never really finished treating his wounds properly. Anakin digs his fingernails into his palm. He should have made sure his master was alright before just—just passing out like that. He can’t bear it—won’t bear it—if he’s harmed Obi-Wan again with his carelessness.

Anakin nudges Obi-Wan a bit through their Force bond, and gets no reply. Asleep then. Good.  He is careful to reconstruct his mental shields before getting to his feet. He doesn’t have to feel the pain, he doesn’t have to feel anything at all. He retraces his steps from the day before. What seemed like miles and miles then is only a short walk up the hill.

Pulling the front of his tunic over his mouth and nose against the lingering smoke, Anakin climbs up into the damaged hull of their ship. The light, two-pilot cruiser was not equipped with any great wealth of medical supplies, but every ship is bound to have some bacta patches and pain tabs squirrelled away somewhere. The trouble is finding them.

Something rankles in the back of Anakin’s mind as he walks past the entrance to the cockpit. Something confusing. Something wrong. But Obi-Wan needs him, so in a feat of ‘living in the present moment’ that would have done old Qui-Gon proud, Anakin moves on.

He finds a locker in the aft storage units labelled “EMERGENCY” in boldface. He punches the key on the side to open it, but there is no power to the ship. Growling, he pries at the edge with his fingernails. He nearly stumbles backwards when something in the inner mechanism snaps and the compartment springs open. Anakin grabs a medpac from the survival kit inside, then hurries back the way he came. His ankle screams in protest as he hops out of the ship and lands on it, but he soldiers on with an iron resolve. There is no time for weakness.

Obi-Wan is awake and scowling when Anakin comes bounding down the hill.

“Good morning,” he says pointedly.

 “It’s night.” Anakin informs him. Although how the entire day’s gone by is beyond him.

“I told you to stay.”

Anakin sits down, looking sheepish.

“I woke up and you had _disappeared_ ,” Obi-Wan presses.

“’Well, I got supplies,” he says. “You okay?”

“Hmm,” Obi-Wan spends a moment taking stock of himself, paling as the corners of his mouth twist in discomfort. “Delightful. Preferable to the alternative, I imagine.”

It’s now Anakin’s turn to go pale. So it had been close, then, he hadn’t been exaggerating to himself. Seeing his former padawan’s jaw hang open, Obi-Wan backpedals. “It will be fine, I am fine, forget I said that.”

“Can I see?” asks Anakin, (who will not be forgetting he said that). He shuffles closer and lifts a corner of the makeshift bandage he’d used to staunch the bleeding. It is stuck fast, melded to Obi-Wan’s shredded tunic and the flesh beneath.

“…don’t…” Obi-Wan whispers. Anakin drops it faster than if it had burned him.

Their attempt at meditation seems to have exhausted all of the elder Jedi’s ability to call upon the Force. His end of the training bond is silent, shields all but nonexistent. Anakin has only to brush up against his Force signature to feel Obi-Wan’s unrelenting vertigo, and the pain which has passed a threshold into something unrecognizable as pain, something horrendous. He draws his own shields tight, in case Obi-Wan can sense his fear, his utter incompetence. He doesn’t know a kriffing thing about healing. So naturally, he smiles. “Let’s see what they packed for us, huh?”

Anakin slings the pack off of his shoulder and unzips it, pawing around inside. He finds some cold-and-flu hypos, scissors, packets of electrolyte powder, a thermogauge, a sheet of pain tabs in aluminum foil—

“Hand those over, padawan mine.” says Obi-Wan. Anakin obliges. “Brilliant.” Obi-Wan pushes three pills out of their packets and tips them back in one go.

In the meantime, Anakin has found some bacta patches and antiseptic gel. “I’m sorry, Master, this has to come off,” He touches the cloth glued to Obi-Wan’s skin. He doesn’t pull this time, but gives a tiny, experimental tug.

Obi-Wan snaps up and grabs his wrist. “Give…give the pain tabs a minute. Please.”

“Sorry!” Anakin lets go again. He sits back on his calves.

The fingers curled around his wrist are trembling. “Are you feverish?” Anakin answers his own question with a hand on Obi-Wan’s forehead. The fear must show in his expression.

“Trauma does that,” says Obi-Wan.

“You sure? It’s not…like, starting to fester, is it?”

“Too soon for that,” Obi-Wan reassures him. “It’s just a reaction, shouldn’t take too long to sweat out.”

Something about that answer doesn’t sit quite right. Obi-Wan’s forehead is dry. “But you aren’t sweating,” He thinks about it. “Force, you were hypovolemic, you need fluids. Here.” He rummages through the depths of the medpac to produce a rectangular carton of water. He starts to pry up a corner and affix the built-in straw, but Obi-Wan motions for the carton.

“I can do that bit,” he insists. He doesn’t realize how dry his throat was until he takes a sip and it feels a hundred times better. Holding the straw so he can drink while on his back turns out to be a messy affair, but he waves away Anakin’s attempts to help.

They both become aware of a delicate quiet hanging over them, each waiting for the other to speak. The medication has had enough time to kick in, and they’ve exhausted all the time they can stall with the water.

“Is that sunrise?” Obi-Wan asks.

“Already?”

“What’s the rotation of this planet?”

“I’m not even sure what planet we’re on.”

That draws Obi-Wan up short. “It’s Rion, Anakin,” he says with concern.

“Well, I’d say it’s less than half of a Standard day, or I’m going crazy,” says Anakin hurriedly.

The quiet returns. Anakin feels too small for the weight of the task before him. Obi-Wan may not be able to feel his Force signature, but there’s enough to read in his face. The boy doesn’t trust himself to know what to do.  But there’s no way around it, no excuses left to wait. And dear Maker above, it is not going to be fun for either of them.

“It’ll only get worse, Anakin. If you don’t clean it—“

“I know!” he snaps.

“Just…just go slow. Please."


	2. Chapter 2

It’s never as bad as it looks. These things are never as bad as they look, the war has taught Obi-Wan that. He’s seen plenty of soldiers with gruesome wounds of every sort, and he’s learned not to judge them until they’re cleaned up.

It’s never as bad as it looks. But glancing down at his torso covered in dark brown blood is hard for his brain to process; he feels disconnected from it like he’s looking at a wound on one of those soldiers. The pain is real enough, though, and the medication only takes the very edge off.

He watches Anakin put on a confident face (as if there’s any chance Obi-Wan’s going to buy it) and get ready to begin. He has the foresight to search through the bag for bacta patches, gauze and a few other things they might need in an emergency and set them out beforehand, within arm’s reach (good boy). Anakin removes Obi-Wan’s belt, then starts cutting the tattered fabric of his tunic around the perimeter of the wound with the medpac scissors. This part doesn’t seem so bad, except when cuts too close, tugging at a tender spot and Obi-Wan sees stars for a moment. Anakin snips a neat line down Obi-Wan’s sleeves so that he can peel away the tunic without the trouble of maneuvering his arms through them.

He pauses. “Alright?”

“Just get on with it, Anakin. You’re doing fine.”

“I know that! This isn’t exactly astrophysics, Master.” Anakin snaps, breathing a nervous sigh. Obviously he, a full-grown knight, can handle scissors. Obviously he has everything under control.

The easy bit is over; the only fabric left now is the patch that’s directly adhered to the wound. What if the whole thing rips open again? What if it bleeds and they can’t make it stop? Anakin pours some water onto the makeshift bandage, little bits at a time until he thinks it might be sodden enough to relinquish its grip on the sensitive skin.

Obi-Wan has found a hold in the Force again, but not strong enough to curb his fear as Anakin reaches for the bandage. He begins with a corner, peeling it up as gently as he can. Beneath his hands he feels the rise and fall of Obi-Wan’s chest as the latter breathes sharply through his nose, in and out, in and out. He’s pushing the pain of it out into the Force, struggling to keep himself centered.

“Do you need a break?” Anakin asks once they’re about a quarter of the way. Obi-Wan nods.

“Would you rather I just…you know,” he mimes yanking his hand up quickly. “Like a bacta plaster?”

“ _No_.” says Obi-Wan severely. Force forbid. He thinks he would probably pass out.

“Just asking.” Anakin returns the straw to the water carton and pushes it into Obi-Wan’s hand. “Drink.”

Obi-Wan wants to be annoyed, but he can’t deny that the water made his head feel much better last time.

“Are the tabs working at all?” Anakin asks.

Obi-Wan has just started taking a sip and gives him an exasperated look. He swallows and smirks, “They might have perhaps been sufficient against a mild headache.”

Obi-Wan let Anakin hide behind his bravado, so he shrugs and lets Obi-Wan hide behind his witticisms. Fair’s fair.

“Ready?”

Anakin continues the careful procedure. The unveiled skin is gooey in places, and he’s not sure if that’s good, but at least he doesn’t seem to be drawing much fresh blood. Obi-Wan takes a sharp breath in as a tough spot comes free, but he lets it out slowly, uncomplaining.

It’s selfish, hideously selfish, he thinks, that he’s putting Obi-Wan through this pain. A brush of fingers on his brow, a gentle pulse of the Force and Obi-Wan could be in a restful trance. By the time he woke up, Anakin could be finished. It’d be easy to do. But the truth is he can’t abide the thought of doing this alone. He needs to feel that presence beside him in the Force. And it’s silly, but he’s afraid he’s going to kriff something up like he did yesterday, and he doesn’t think he could take it if anything happened and he couldn’t wake Obi-Wan up. Is that an attachment? It probably is.

The wound is almost as long as Anakin’s forearm, but the end trailing towards Obi-Wan’s hip is superficial, and the bandage comes up quickly.

“Almost done.”

Obi-Wan cranes his neck to watch Anakin pull the last of it free.

“There, that’s over.” He begins dabbing at the stickiness with gauze and antiseptic, trying to get the last of the dirt and wool out. At first he’s alarmed by the occasional blots of fresh red blood, but it seems to be under control. “Up here it could probably use a couple stitchers.”

Given the natures of Qui-Gon Jinn, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker, it’s no surprise that they’ve become more or less experts in the field of guessing whether a cut needs stitchers. The deeper end closer to Obi-Wan’s shoulder definitely qualifies.

“Sadly, that’s a luxury we don’t have,” says Obi-Wan, sounding thoroughly exhausted.

There’s a pause, and they’re both thinking about getting stitchers at the Temple Healers, which makes them think of Coruscant, and in turn the fact that they are here instead of delivering their report to the Council. The last thing Anakin remembers is pulling out of hyperspace because something was wrong with the ship. The time between that moment and the floor and the coolant and the broken glass is a void in his mind that he doesn’t want to probe.

Obi-Wan feels his anxiety through the Force. “Anakin,” he calls his former padawan back to the present. “Bacta, don’t you think?”

“Right.” The familiar cloying smell permeates the air as Anakin rips open a bacta patch and drapes it across the deepest part of the wound. It stings like hell at first, but quickly turns cool and soothing. It takes two more to cover the entire wound. Anakin checks the rest of him over quickly, smearing some antiseptic on a few other small cuts, then sits back.

Each Jedi breathes a private sigh of relief. Finally done. It’s all much less scary tucked away under the patches. They’re okay. They’re tired. Obi-Wan is completely drained by his ordeal, and Anakin could use a rest emotionally.

(The pain begins to creep in on Anakin again – the aching, the throbbing, the prickly twinges in his ankle – but he crams them firmly away somewhere where he doesn’t have to bother with them, not now)

“You look like you could collapse, padawan.”

“So do you. And you said you’d stop calling me ‘padawan’. I’m not one.”

“Old habits die hard, _padawan_.”

“The nerve!”

It’s not that funny, actually it’s downright stupid, but they laugh anyway. They’ve always been good at that.

“Cold?” Anakin asks. Obi-Wan is shivering gently.

“A little.” Rion is a warm planet, more or less, but the wind has picked up all of a sudden. “You look ready to collapse.” Obi-Wan repeats.

Anakin shrugs.

“Lie down and rest. We can share your robe.”

Anakin sighs, shoulders out of the robe and drapes it over Obi-Wan. “Lost yours again, have you?”

“The Council will be disappointed in me.”

“I hope Master Yoda points it out and they all laugh again.”

“How rude of you to say.”

Anakin hesitates just a moment before lying down. Quarters were often tight on missions when they were younger, but it’s been a while since they’ve had to share a bunk. Things are a little different now, some of the easy comfort of proximity is gone. Sometimes masters and padawans grew distant and professional the minute the younger’s braid was cut, but they were never destined to be that sort. It’s just a little odd, that’s all. He lies back in the grass and pulls his share of the robe over.

Obi-Wan is afraid that the pain will keep him up, but he surprises himself. It seems for now the fatigue is stronger – it is heavy, weighing on his eyelids and tugging at his very bones. Anakin is afraid of the opposite, that sleep will loosen his grip on his mind and everything he’s been trying to holding at bay will sneak in like before. He is determined not to go through that again, at the cost of physical exhaustion if necessary.

Lying here, his eyelids are drooping in spite of himself; before long he’ll be unconscious whether he likes it or not. He waits until he notices the change in Obi-Wan’s breathing to sit up, tucking his side of the robe around his former master as he does so. It’s chilly, but the breeze helps clear his head anyways.  

His mind whirrs out of control, considering for the first time that they need to find a way off of this backwater planet. The ship has no power, but there might be a way to run the hyperwave transmitter on a backup fuel cell, assuming it wasn’t damaged in the impact. He will have to go and see. If they’re lucky, they might be near a settlement that will lend them a ship or at least some medical supplies. He’s surprised they haven’t seen any other lifeforms yet. He tries to add up how much time has passed, which is complicated by the fact that the days aren’t Standard length. Rion’s moons have risen and set twice already but that’s no help.

A shudder racks Anakin’s shoulder blades. The sky is looking darker and smokier than before, and the wind feels kind of damp. He scrubs a hand over his face and tells himself he’s not that tired. It’s been a few hours, and he has to get creative to distract himself. He shifts his attention to the medical bag, unpacking and repacking it to construct a list of what they have, and what they might need. He keeps thinking, thinking anything at all as long as his mind is too busy to wander into that big, blank void.

He feels a single, fat raindrop land squarely on his back. He thinks he might have imagined it.

Two more, then three, then four. “ _Son of a nerfherder_ —“ says Anakin out loud.

Obi-Wan is stirs. He grumpily reaches a hand up to brush a raindrop from his face, and the hot stab of pain near his collarbone jolts him the rest of the way awake.

The rain is warm and muggy and before long it’s coming down hard. “We need shelter,” says Anakin.

“What?”

“We need to move to shelter!” Anakin shouts over the rain as he pulls the medpac onto his shoulders. “Can you walk?”

Obi-Wan sits up cautiously, ignoring his body’s protests, and pulls Anakin’s robe tighter around his shoulders. “Is it far?”

“No!” Anakin points. The very top of the ship is visible from over the hill. It’s a short walk, but fairly steep.

“We’re going back to the ship?”

“Where else?” Anakin watches as Obi-Wan takes his time trying to stand. “I could try to carry you, I guess. Or do you think you can walk?” He plops himself down on the muddy ground and grabs Obi-Wan’s hands

“Alright,” he concedes. “No, no, don’t pull!” Obi-Wan moves slowly, deliberately, pushing his weight into Anakin’s grip and letting those impatient hands guide him upright. He sways a little but Anakin loops an arm around his shoulder. This is alright. This is doable.

“It won’t take long.” Anakin points up the hill. “Lean on me.”

It feels far. The grass is slippery, and although Obi-Wan’s legs are working fine it’s the rest of him that’s having a hard time staying upright, requiring him to lean into Anakin at an awkward angle. The dizziness comes and goes in waves, and he’s starting to suspect that he may have cracked a rib or two. He grits his teeth and draws upon the Force to manage the pain. Anakin would like to hurry but he lets Obi-Wan set the pace. They walk (or shuffle, really) up the hill, tiny step after tiny step.

By the time their path turns downhill they can see the ship clearly. Anakin climbs in first and helps Obi-Wan up. He feels a little uneasy again when they walk past the cockpit, but he ignores it.

Everything in the corridor is grimy with the residue of smoke, but the door to their sleeping cabin was apparently closed and managed to remain so, and so looks just as they left it. Anakin guides Obi-Wan to his bunk and supports him as he lays himself back. Then he disappears, leaving Obi-Wan to catch his breath and listen to the echo of raindrops plunking on the durasteel hull.

He comes back armed with towels, tosses one in Obi-Wan’s direction and begins tousling his dripping hair with another. He pulls clean clothes for them both out of a locker below the bunks. Obi-Wan requires a bit of assistance getting into his. Once dry, Anakin stops shivering, but Obi-Wan doesn’t.

 “Your fever’s worse,” Anakin observes, using the back of his hand instead of a thermogauge.

“I believe it.” The short hike has left Obi-Wan feeling shaky and weak and entirely too warm.

“We oughta get you to a healer, Master,” he says, seating himself on his own bunk opposite.

“I suppose.” Obi-Wan smiles halfheartedly.

“’Reckon there’s one nearby?”

“Can you find out?”

Anakin swallows hard. The equipment, assuming it’s still functional, is in the cockpit. Which logically shouldn’t be a big deal, but there’s nothing logical about the fear gripping at his insides. There’s something deeply unsettling that’s stuck in the corner of his mind he’s been trying not to prod. He just knows doesn’t want to go in there.

“Well?”

“Our scanners are probably shot.”

“Have you tried?”

“Yeah,”

“When?”

“While you were sleeping.”

“We were both sleeping.” A beat. A realization. “You didn’t sleep.”

Kriff. Anakin can’t think of a way to backpedal out of that one.

“ _Ana_ kin,” he sighs, as he usually does when gearing up for a lecture. It is taking considerable effort for Obi-Wan to marshal his thoughts enough to remain focused on the conversation, the least Anakin could do is try to make sense for once. The boy is trying to hide his presence in the Force, but their bond is strong enough that Obi-Wan can still sense him, and sense his fear. That fear is one thing he could never seem to outgrow, though Obi-Wan has tried to teach him to feel it without being influenced by it.

“What are you afraid of?”

“I am not afraid!”

He fairly launches himself to his feet in a burst of panic, neglecting to brace his mental shields to accept the sudden weight on his ankle. Pain shoots up Anakin’s leg and his entire spine before he can scramble to draw his mind tight again. It’s too late. Obi-Wan felt it too.

“ _Ana_ kin,”

There’s that voice again, but Anakin has a feeling he’s in for a very different lecture this time.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Roles reverse. Jedi boys squabble. Obi-Wan has given up trying to convince Anakin that R2-D2 is not a pet.

Anakin freezes like a womp rat in a trap, radiating frustration. He has a sinking feeling that if he runs, Obi-Wan might try to follow and he certainly doesn’t want that. His former master is already using the bedframe to pull himself into a sitting position.

“Sit,” says Obi-Wan gently, gesturing to the bunk Anakin has just vacated. His feverish Force signature is pulsing with confusion and concern and just a little bit of self-directed anger that he’s been too caught up in his own injury to realize that Anakin was hurting. Anakin complies warily.

“Were you hurt in the landing, or the explosion?”

There’s a fear in Anakin’s eyes that Obi-Wan’s not sure he understands. “I…don’t know.”

“ _Ana_ kin,”

“I don’t know!”

“ _You don’t know_.” Obi-Wan rolls his eyes, wondering how Anakin possibly thinks he can get away with this sort of shoddy evasion tactic. But when he speaks up again his tone is gentler. “There’s something wrong with your foot.”

“Ankle. I don’t think it’s serious,” Anakin mumbles, rolling up one pant leg.

“And you’ve been using the Force to control your mind so you don’t have to take care of it.”

“It’s just a little swollen.”

“Broken?”

“Nah. Maybe sprained.”

“How?”

Anakin gives him a look.

“You don’t _know_?” Obi-Wan guesses. “It might be worse than you think it is, Anakin. You need to let your body tell you what’s wrong.”

“I thought I wasn’t supposed to feel things,” Anakin snaps. “You tell me off when I don’t control my mind, and now you’re telling me off when I do!”

“You know the difference,” says Obi-Wan. “We acknowledge what we feel and then we let go of it into the Force. All you’re doing is stuffing it down inside yourself to see how long you can get away with ignoring it.” The fever is making the words roll off his tongue, but he means them.

“I’m not ignoring anything, I’ve just been busy!”

“Busy?”

“Yeah, busy saving your skin for the _third time_ —“

“It was the second,” Obi-Wan interjects. “But—“

“Third! There’s no way that last one didn’t count, Master,” says Anakin.

“Don’t change the subject. You’re not busy now, are you? Take a few minutes and work through it.”

Anakin’s gaze flicks towards the door, wondering if it’s too late to bolt.

“You don’t have to just throw your shields down like a floodgate,” Obi-Wan soothes. “A little bit of pain at a time. Just until your mind can balance itself.”

Anakin bristles, “I’m not worried about _that_!”

Obi-Wan raises an eyebrow and waits for him to elaborate.

“I…never mind.” He sits back against the wall and inhales, starting to ease up where his mind was previously closed off. Obi-Wan feels the shift, but stays out of Anakin’s way for now.

Anakin lets the pain return by degrees, trying to sift the physical sensations away from the emotions. They are still steeped in the panic of the moments when he’d originally felt them, but he tells himself firmly that no one is in immediate danger. He knows enough to slow down whenever they start to carry him away and make him forget that he’s here in the present, not fumbling for the medpac or blindly searching for Obi-Wan in the smoke. It’s over. It’s over. All that’s left is the pain.

Obi-Wan was afraid that Anakin might have underestimated the severity of his twisted ankle. That doesn’t seem to be the case. His perception of the pain does intensify, but Anakin is prepared for that. He is not, however, prepared for the sudden swirl pounding through his temples, or the feeling of his pulse in the big, hot welt on the back of his head. He swallows hard to keep from being sick.

He thinks that’s going to be the worst part. It isn’t. Just like the twinge of his ankle dredged up memories of staggering through the smoke, the headache begins to tug at something in the big blank spot, twisting a knife in the psychological wound. The world spins faster, the nausea peaks. Anakin pulls back frantically. He tells his eyes to open, but it’s a decent 30 seconds before they obey.

“Alright?” asks Obi-Wan softly.

Anakin glares.

“You looked like you blacked out,”

“I did _not_ black out!” Anakin snarls.

Experience has taught Obi-Wan how to answer a raised voice with a lowered one. “Why are you angry?”

“I’m _not angry_ —” Even louder.

“Try it again, slowly.” Even softer.

“No.”

“I can’t make you.” Obi-Wan’s voice is almost inaudible. “But you should.” He draws his blanket tighter around his shoulders.

“You’re ill.” An observation.

“I think you already mentioned that.” He just does not have it in him to be responsible for anyone else’s health right now. Anakin is going to have to manage to be responsible for himself. That’s the reality – whether Obi-Wan likes or not it is irrelevant.

“Are you warm enough?”

“No. And yes.” Obi-Wan sighs. “I am about spent, Anakin. Can I rely on you take care of yourself if I go back to sleep?”

“You need to rest.”

“That wasn’t my question.” Obi-Wan gasps a little bit as he tries to shift off of the sheets of his bunk so he can crawl between them. Anakin grabs a corner and pulls it out of his way. “Try not to walk on that anymore,” Obi-Wan points to Anakin’s ankle. “And take a nap yourself, for Force’s sake.”

Anakin nods without technically verbally promising anything. It’s good enough for Obi-Wan.

***

Sleep is just not an option. Part of Anakin knows this is not a long-term solution, but he chooses to ignore that.

Obi-Wan sleeps, but not peacefully. From his sullen perch in the opposite bunk, Anakin watches is former master sweat and shiver in turns, thinking about everything he would give for a bacta tank right now. Even a partial one would do. Or better yet would be if they could beam themselves directly to a medcenter on Coruscant, with fancy equipment and professionals who actually know what in nine hells to do about this.

Teleportation is a childish fantasy, but Rion might have medcenters of its own. He’ll have to swallow his fears and venture into the cockpit to find out. Obi-Wan told him to take care of himself, and he’ll never be able to sleep until he finds out, so in a way this is like Step 1 towards that nap. That’s what he tells himself.

The Rionese sun has just set for the fourth time (whatever that’s worth) so when he approaches the entranceway it is dark inside. Anakin’s heart beats in his ears. They’d been leaving a world called Gavoros after particularly successful negotiations, if he dared say so himself. He’d been excited that Obi-Wan was going to let him give the report to the Council and the Senate. But when they’d entered into hyperspace…what? What had happened? He doesn’t remember, and that’s terrifying.

Something crunches underneath his feet wherever he steps. They’re tiny kernels of quartz-glass, sharp enough to prick his finger when he picks one up. Oh, kriff, the entire windshield’s blown in. That seems familiar. Anakin starts fiddling with rods and buttons but everything’s dead. He even kicks a dash panel for good measure. It’s no use. On his way out the door, he nearly trips over something, grabbing the wall before he falls on his face. The ‘something’ whines pathetically.

“What in the-” he crouches down, trying to see what it is. A dim red light flicks on. “R2!”

The astromech is on its side in the entranceway. Anakin turns him right-side up again and he beeps his thanks.

“Sorry I forgot about you, buddy. Everything okay?”

R2 rattles off a report from his self-diagnostic program, which includes a few minor things that have been skewed or jostled out of place by the impact. Nothing Anakin couldn’t have repaired at the age of three.

“Well, I actually know how to fix _you_ ,” he remarks dryly, getting to work. He's not sure how long he's been sitting there when he feels something tugging at him through the Force.

 _[Anakin?]_  Asks an anxious voice. Then, audible from across the ship, little feebler and more panicky, “Anakin!”

Anakin almost knocks R2 over again in his haste to get down the corridor. The droid rattles along behind.

Obi-Wan is not in distress, just disoriented after waking from a rather confusing dream to find Anakin’s bunk empty. Sweat glistens on his forehead and all the blankets are on the floor, but when Anakin starts to replace them Obi-Wan shakes his head.

“’not cold anymore,” he explains, apparently only mostly awake. He starts trying to peel off his sweaty sleep shirt. Anakin gets him clean pajamas and a damp cloth to wipe his face and convinces him to lie back down. He’s out cold again in moments, and seems to sleep more soundly this time.

***

“So, why is it you never seem to be around when I wake up?” says Obi-Wan shrewdly the next morning. Anakin had been hoping he wouldn’t remember.

“Your fever’s broken.” Anakin deflects.

“Yes, I’m glad of it. Did you rest like I asked you to?”

“Yes.” The spidery blood vessels in the corners of his eyes say otherwise. “I found R2.”

“Oh yes?”

“All our equipment is down ‘cept him, and he hasn’t got much charge left.”

“So you checked the sensors again,” says Obi-Wan with just a hint of cheek.

Anakin ploughs on without the even grace to look sheepish. “His lifeform scanner’s only good for twenty kilometers. There aren’t any humanoids in that radius, or much of anything really. Just some birds and mammals, but nothing particularly threatening. Or edible.”

Twenty kilometers might as well be twenty thousand, between Obi-Wan who can’t stand upright and Anakin who _can_ walk, but most decidedly _shouldn’t_. Unless they come up with some kind of transportation or someone happens to stumble upon them, they won’t be getting any help from on-worlders. It’s a disappointing blow, but Obi-Wan hides it with a small nod. He takes a few moments to stretch (carefully) and sit up. He feels more alert than he has since the crash, so that’s something. “Have you tried to contact the Temple?”

"It's too far for R2 by himself. The satellite framework in the Outer Rim is ancient. He tried a bunch of times, though." Anakin glances defensively from the droid to Obi-Wan, as if daring him to say anything against his precious astromech.

Obi-Wan is less convinced that R2-D2 is capable of having its feelings hurt, but he’s not in the mood to rehash that particular debate. “They’ll be looking for us,” he assures Anakin.

“They won’t know where we left hyperspace,” Anakin mumbles.

"If you were picked up by any type of Republic ships, the coordinates might make their way into the right hands."

R2-D2 swings his dome around and beeps optimistically at Anakin. Anakin gives him a pat.

“So all we can do is wait and see.” Obi-Wan concludes. “It will take them a few days in any case.”

 _Waiting_. Anakin swallows. Waiting, hopefully, blindly, to see whether they will be rescued or—or—

There are a number of possibilities beyond that. The Jedi Order are unlikely to abandon two of their best knights without a good, thorough search. Anakin’s considerable mechanical skills might improvise another means of communication. Their supplies might last until they are both fit to travel towards civilization. They will not die here, they will _not_. Anakin realizes he is levitating the pillows in his agitation. He snorts and lets them slump back down.

“How’s your ankle?” asks Obi-Wan by way of distraction. Always back to the present moment. A lesson well-learned from his own master.

“Fine,” says Anakin reflexively. He swings his feet off the bunk and experimentally shifts some of his weight onto it. He forgets he is no longer shielding himself from the reality of the injury and looks just a little bit green as he sits back down.

“Try propping it up. Here.” He tosses a pillow onto the opposite bunk.

“I said it’s fine.”

“You actually need to look after yourself, you know. You’re an adult, as you like to remind me.”

“I look after myself—“

“Have you eaten? Slept?”

“I slept!” It’s not a very good lie. “You’re not being fair! I’m not a healer,”

“I’m not asking you to be a healer. I’m asking you not to run yourself into the ground trying to be.”

“What’s that even mean?”

“It means prop your ankle up to help the swelling, and stop holding so tight to your fear. The Order will find us here and it will be alright, as long as that’s what the Force wills.”

“But—”

“Have faith, padawan,”

It’s such a gentle rebuke that Anakin can’t help but feel just a little bit chastened. Obi-Wan understands that Anakin is not entirely to blame for his fidgety mind, and that he probably couldn’t sleep if he tried. Not that he’s tried.

“Now come over here. _Carefully_.”

Anakin leans on his good leg and scoots over to sit next to Obi-Wan. He stacks some pillows on the bunk he’s just vacated to support his twisted ankle.

“That’s better. Now, let me see.”

It’s a familiar routine, checking each other over like they’ve just come home from any other mission. If they’re on Coruscant, more often than not they’ll both be dragged to the Halls of Healing anyway, but on the battlefield it’s efficient to have a system beyond what overworked medics can provide. Obi-Wan shakes his head when he gets to the tiny cuts peppering Anakin’s flesh arm.

“What is…did you fall in _gravel_?”

Anakin remembers the glittering silver and red on the cockpit floor. “I think it’s glass. The windshield—”

“Oh, blast,” Obi-Wan’s wounds won’t allow him to bend far enough to reach the medpac on the floor. “Find me the antiseptic and some forceps. And a box of ‘plasters.”

Anakin hands over the requested items and presents his forearm with a halfhearted pout that Obi-Wan knows all too well. Over the years, many a scraped knee or training-saber burn has been thrust at him with the same reluctant frown. It was cuter back then. The antiseptic contains a mild numbing agent, which is lucky because some of the deeper cuts have closed up already and Obi-Wan has to dig to get the gritty bits of quartz-glass out. The heel of his palm is the worst. Anything that bleeds gets a thumbprint-sized bacta plaster stuck over it. When they’re done, Anakin tapes up his own ankle under Obi-Wan’s careful direction, because the latter can’t reach. They decide it’s definitely not broken, thank the Force.

They both understand that dehydration is their worst enemy in any situation like this one, so they drink. Obi-Wan’s stomach wants to balk even at plain water, but he can’t very well order Anakin to eat without doing so himself, so he nibbles at a corner of a ration bar. Anakin argues in typical Skywalker fashion, but once persuaded he finds he was hungrier than he thought. Only then do they allow themselves to rest. It’s strange, how exhausting basic survival can be.

The Force is with Obi-Wan, stronger than yesterday. He takes heart in that. He is much sorer than before and growing stiff to boot, but he manages fold his legs neatly, resting his palms on his kneecaps. At first it is difficult to focus because his ribs won’t allow him to breathe as deeply as he is accustomed to, but soon he lets go of even that. He gives his mind over to the Force for a while, letting it flow through him and over him and around him and feeling quite at home.

He tries to focus that positive flow of energy on healing. He's not trained in the art, but he can perhaps reduce his symptoms. Anakin ought to try the same. Obi-Wan feels the younger's Force signature loitering at the corner of his awareness. He sends a silent invitation across the bed.

After a momentary pause, Anakin responds. Obi-Wan thanks the Force that their training bond is as strong as it has always been, although he knows the Jedi Council thinks it a cause for unease. Bonds are nigh unbreakable and can make things messy when one party is feeling a strong emotion, but they can certainly be useful. In battle especially, and in situations like this one when Anakin needs the emotional support.

Anakin’s heartrate stabilizes and his breaths come slower, but he still cannot relinquish his thoughts entirely to the Force. Obi-Wan notices.

_[You're still troubled,]_

_[I don’t remember what happened,]_ Anakin confesses. Somehow Obi-Wan can tell it’s a whisper, despite the fact that there is no sound. There’s a tension in the tiny admission that aches.

Obi-Wan responds not with words, but with peaceful energy. It’s alright, they’re alright. Anakin flinches from it, ripping himself hastily into another state of mind entirely. Obi-Wan was just getting comfortable but now feels obliged to follow. He comes back into his surroundings more gently, with a heart full of concern for his panicky padawan.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to address two questions quickly - I’m planning on this story being 10 chapters long, continuing to update weekly. Secondly, although the boys are having something of a respite healthwise, the hurt/comfort is going to get intense again pretty soon. But for now…
> 
> Have you ever been around a child who is cranky because he missed his nap? Because. well.

Anakin leans back against the cabin wall, gazing firmly towards the ground. Obi-Wan prods him mentally with a little pulse of drowsiness. He resists.

“Have you slept at _all_?” asks Obi-Wan incredulously.

“Yes.” An unsteady flicker in his Force signature tells Obi-Wan he’s lying. “Sort of…after we meditated the first time.”

“That can’t have been more than an hour.”

“So? Besides, when I woke up, it was…” he struggles for a description. “I don’t want to do that again.”

A beat. Anakin waits for Obi-Wan to lecture, to tell him that he can’t stay up forever, that he’s being childish.

“What part don’t you remember?” Obi-Wan’s voice is half a whisper. When all that gets him is a wide-eyed stare, he tries a different angle. “What _do_ you remember?”

“Garovos,” he says. “The treaty. Seemed like everyone was satisfied with it, except those grouchy reps from the Factory Union. We were happy when we left. Then…” he thinks about it. “As soon as we got into hyperspace…we had to jump right back out again.” Anakin is probing the edge of the blank spot now, and it’s making his heart thump in his ears. “But we…did I miscalculate? Did we jump right into the atmosphere and burn up?”

“No,” says Obi-Wan gently. “We exited just fine, to the Outer Rim right where we wanted to be. You decided to go straight to Rion because—”

“Don’t—don’t, you can’t just tell me!” blurts Anakin. He doesn’t know why, but he’s afraid that if Obi-Wan explains the whole story his brain will just make up memories to fill the hole, and he’ll never know if they’re real or not.

Obi-Wan doesn’t understand. “You don’t want to know?”

“Of course I want to know!” Anakin shouts, not caring whether he is making sense. He remembers the negotiations on Garovos; that memory is solid and real and unambiguously _his_. Now that Obi-Wan’s said it he can imagine how they exited hyperspace too, but does he remember it? Is that real?

“Then why—Anakin!”

Anakin is holding his head in his hands and breathing noisily, tightly maintaining a wall between the two of them. Any attempts Obi-Wan might make to comfort him through the Force would be futile, but he’s desperate enough to try anyways. He wishes he could go back and tell his younger self, who had resented having to play the parent, how the protection of Anakin will creep up his priority list over the years until he starts to wonder if their relationship even fits within the parameters of the Jedi code. It’s begun to smack of a certain word beginning with ‘a’, if he’s entirely honest with himself. But all the protective instincts in the world aren’t going to help Anakin sort this out.

It takes several agonizing minutes for Anakin to regain control of his breathing. “I just…have to think. I was awake, wasn’t I?”

“As far as I know,”

“Then I have to remember! I’ll—”

“Anakin,” Obi-Wan reasons. “You might have hit your head.”

“So?!”

“So it will heal, like everything else!”

“But I have to figure it out! If you tell me, it’ll change everything!”

“Why? Stop making this into some twisted _puzzle_ you have to solve!”

Anakin fairly launches himself up out of the bunk and shoves past R2-D2 on his way out the door. It would have looked more dramatic if he wasn’t dragging his bad ankle along.

***

The kriffing sun is setting again, and Anakin hates it for being so useless. What good is a sun if you can’t tell the passage of days by it? He sits on the hill, just out of earshot of his former Master’s shouting after him. The knowledge that he is being irrational just makes him angrier.

Anakin traces the knot on the back of his head. It’s a bit warm to the touch and pressing on it sends pain shooting through his entire skull. Obi-Wan’s right, he’s always _kriffing_ right and it’s not _kriffing_ fair.

He doesn’t know how long he sits there before a gentle whirring noise becomes audible from behind.

“Hey buddy,” grunts Anakin without turning to look. R2-D2 rolls up and parks beside him.

The sun dips behind the copse of tropical trees on the horizon, lighting them up orange. Rion has a hot, humid climate that puts him in a foul mood. It couldn’t be much worse. Except it could, obviously. He supposes of all places to be stranded, Rion mercifully has a breathable atmosphere…breathable…

It was the oxygen reserves. He suddenly feels sure of it. There’d been a minor leak or something of the sort, which meant they had to leave hyperspace and find a habitable planet immediately. They’d been in too much of a hurry and he must have botched the landing.

R2 beeps. Anakin rubs his burning eyes. “You wouldn’t understand. You can back up your memories and retrieve them in perfect condition whenever you want.”

More beeping. “Because it’s not just data to us, bud. It’s thinking and feeling and sensing and…it’s complicated.”

A low-pitched whine. Anakin ignores it, folding his arms on his knees and resting his forehead against them. He can’t shake the feeling that something is wrong, that there’s something he needs urgently to remember.

R2 flicks his holoprojector on and chirps until Anakin caves and looks up. It’s a readout of the cruiser’s pressure and gas levels dated the day they left Garovos. The pressure creeps up by degrees as the oxygen falls faster than it should. Once several minutes have clicked by, the pressure spikes and data abruptly cuts off, when R2 became disconnected from the ship’s monitors by the impact.

“Thanks,” Anakin mumbles. So he’s right, then.

But something doesn’t quite add up. The CO2 in the cockpit right before the crash is not even close to a life-threatening level. They would have needed to land, but they could’ve afforded to take their time doing it right. “Show me the speed and fuel screen.”

R2 is happy to oblige. Anakin recognizes the pattern of the jump from hyperspace. Then they hold steady for a while, before slowing down, presumably approaching the planet. The speed drops steadily while the fuel cells work harder to accommodate the change in atmospheric pressure. It’s textbook, all of it’s textbook. They are still a few kilometers up when the data cuts off, but their speed seems perfectly appropriate. It doesn’t make sense. The landing should have been beautiful. Why wasn’t it?

He’s missing something. Something _important_. As Anakin racks his brain, he jams his good foot against a curved piece of debris in frustration, causing it to roll back onto its side. An assortment of soot-blackened rubble is revealed underneath, nothing of particular interest...until a silver object about the size of Anakin’s fist comes alive with tiny white lights. A spindly propeller shoots out from underneath it as it begins to whirr and squeak. Anakin leaps to his feet, draws his lightsaber and activates it in a single, fluid motion. He holds the weapon in a defensive position, pausing a moment to see what it will do. The tiny machine hovers about a meter into the air and spins its flat head around, taking in the surroundings. Then, without warning, it rockets up towards the clouds. Anakin swings at it, but he is too late. He reaches instinctively for his hip, but finds no blaster hanging from his belt. _Nine hells!_

“I gotta bad feeling about this,” Anakin mutters. He knows who he needs to discuss it with, and it’s going to require him to swallow a small amount of pride first. Disgusting.

***

Anakin creeps back aboard the ship with a grumbled apology on his lips, but Obi-Wan appears to have shouted himself hoarse and fallen back asleep. His injury is really taking a lot out of him.

Anakin passes the time by locating an electric kettle, the designated tea kettle that Obi-Wan doesn’t let him brew caf with (“The flavor never washes out, Anakin!”). It’s one of the few appliances they have which can run on its own power. Tea just feels like the right thing. Over the years, most of their arguments have ended with tea.

Regrettably, the trill of the kettle wakes Obi-Wan up. Anakin thinks he still looks tired, but his color has definitely improved and there’s no sign of fever. Anakin thanks the Force for that. He still doesn’t like to admit how much he’d feared for Obi-Wan’s life at first.

“You sleep a lot,” says Anakin pointedly.

Obi-Wan fixes him with a look that is clearly both a retort and a silent question. Anakin’s glance towards his feet is a silent answer.

“M’sorry,” he says, offering a small bowl of tea (he couldn’t find any mugs).

“It’s quite alright,” says Obi-Wan taking it and sipping gratefully.

“You’re not cross?”

“No, just exhausted. And you’re exhausted.”

“Obi-Wan, I can’t…just, not yet, I—”

“I think you’d feel better.” Anakin opens his mouth to interject but Obi-Wan continues over him. “But do it in your own time.”

Anakin pours himself a bowl of tea as well and sits down. “Obi-Wan, I remembered something.” Anakin tells him about the oxygen and the confusingly peaceful landing.

Obi-Wan nods. “That sounds right. I was pretty sure nothing exploded until just before we touched down.”

“ _Exploded_?”

“Yes,”

“But…” That changes everything. Was that what he had to remember? “What exploded?”

“I’m not certain.”

A beat. Obi-Wan sets down his tea to itch the corner of his bacta patch.

“Figure we need to replace those yet?” Anakin asks.

“They work for 24 hours.”

“Has it been 24 hours?”

Obi-Wan doesn’t know. Anakin understands that they’ve been fortunate so far, that Obi-Wan is doing spectacularly well given the circumstances. He’s not eager to test that luck. “I’ll just change them.”

“Alright.”

Anakin helps Obi-Wan roll his shirt up out of the way, baring his chest which is looking much more colorful than before. Purple, green and yellow bruises have surfaced around the angry red border of the wound. The surrounding skin is still so sensitive that just the slight dig of Anakin’s fingernail as he starts to peel up the first patch is enough to make Obi-Wan bite the inside of his cheek.

The patches have adhesive edges, but it’s nothing compared to the nightmare of the wool bandage. That particular ordeal is very much on both of their minds as Anakin pulls them up by the corner.

“Am I allowed to tell you what _I_ remember?” Obi-Wan is trying very hard not to be sarcastic but also trying to distract himself. “I wasn’t in the cockpit with you.”

“Okay, but…stop if I tell you to,” says Anakin warily.

“We picked Rion specifically because it was habitable, and our oxygen was compromised. I thought it was going to be an easy landing too. We found a spot in the middle of nowhere, thinking we could fix what we had to and leave again without causing a stir with the locals.”

“Okay,” Anakin could have gathered as much himself.

“I think I was looking for tools in one of the storage units on the starboard side. We were probably just moments away from touching the ground when everything just seemed to burst apart, and the next thing I knew I was half-buried on the bottom of the hill.”

“The explosion was near the storage units?”

“I suppose so.”

“I assumed we must have lost an engine.”

“Hm, apparently not.”

“Why, then? What’s combustible over there?” He feels more confident all of a sudden, like this is the puzzle he’s been itching to solve. “Nothing. Unless there was an electrical fire or it was something inside one of the storage units, there’s no reason for—”

“What’s combustible inside the storage units?”

“Nothing. It’s not likely…oh. OH.” It starts with a flood of relief, a puzzle solved, but the feeling is quickly replaced by dread. Nothing that belonged on the ship would have caused this type of damage. Therefore, it was something that didn’t belong on the ship. Something…oh Force, “It was something somebody planted on us.”

Obi-Wan raises his eyebrows. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.” That’s what he had to remember. “In that case…well, just now, I accidentally freed this little droid thing from the wreckage…” Anakin explains what happened.

“And you think it went off to report back to its master,” Obi-Wan concludes.

Anakin nods.

“And they’ll know their job isn’t finished.”

Another nod.

They sit in silence, mulling over the realization. Anakin goes back to draping fresh bacta patches over the wound, taking a moment to examine it again. The trailing end is so shallow that if they get access to a bacta tank quickly enough it might not even scar, but the further up he looks, the nastier it gets, culminating in the puncture beneath Obi-Wan’s collarbone. It’s a miracle that his lungs were spared, and that even the ribs which they suspect are cracked seem to be in their proper place. He can’t really see how deep the gash it is, definitely too deep to go without professional treatment. The bacta from the patches probably can’t get all the way down in, and Anakin is sure as hell not going to go poking around it with his untrained fingers.

“So someone tried to kill us,” says Obi-Wan at length. It’s not as if it’s never happened before. “Someone doesn’t want our treaty to get back to Coruscant.”

“Separatists,” Anakin spits. The treaty had dealt with the monitoring of a hyperspace route near Garovos which separatists in the mid rim had been supposedly using to transport weapons and machinery.

“Maybe. Or someone else with something to gain from them.”

“What do you mean?” The Senate had proposed rather generous terms for the use of data from government-owned Cronau sensors on the planet’s surface, and the officials in Garovos had seemed thrilled. Well, all except… “The factory union guys?”

“Could be. Garovos has a fairly big industry in weapons production. And so close to their smuggling route, I’m sure the separatists would have found them to be very convenient allies.”

“Oh,”

“Just a hunch,” says Obi-Wan. “We might never even know for sure.”

“Unless they come after us.”

“Unless they come after us,” Obi-Wan agrees grimly, finishing his tea in one final gulp. “But no sense worrying about that. How do you feel?”

“…a little better.”

Obi-Wan nods. “You should take some pain tabs for your head and lie down.”

Anakin bristles. “You said I didn’t have to—”

“I won’t order you to sleep. But get in your bunk and take a Force-forsaken break, Anakin.” He winks. “You look terrible.”

Anakin makes a show of rolling his eyes and grumbling as he complies. Obi-Wan is not moved by his theatrics.

Although Anakin feels more comfortable with weird blank spot in this memory, a part of him is still afraid of to sleep. He skips the pain tabs because he knows they make him drowsy. But tabs or no tabs, resting his burning eyes after several harrowing days is evidently enough.


	5. Chapter 5

_The bounty hunter laughs in his face as his saber swing cuts through nothing. The blow that didn’t connect only puts him off balance for a heartbeat, but it’s long enough. In a single movement, she kicks him in the gut and snatches the blaster off the wing of the ship, and as he raises his blade he finds the muzzle resting on his forehead. The laugh will be the last thing he hears—_

Obi-Wan smiles to himself with his eyes on the cabin ceiling. He starts to put his hands behind his head, but the movement stretches a searing stripe of pain across his chest, and he quickly rearranges them at his side. He hears Anakin to his left, breathing noisily. _He still snores when he sleeps on his back. Thought he’d outgrown that._

His amusement with the snores wears off rather quickly, but Obi-Wan wouldn’t dream of interrupting that hard-won sleep. Not that it would likely work anyways. Anakin sleeps like the dead at the best of times; given the extraordinary circumstances it would probably take a herd of banthas to wake him. It’s an immense relief to see him looking after himself. Anakin does not rely on Obi-Wan the way he once did, but every once in a while he still needs a bit of guidance. Obi-Wan imagines those instances will continue to grow fewer until one day they cease entirely. The thought definitely should _not_ make him sad, he knows this…but it still feels a little…empty.

The sun sets and rises and sets again before the boy comes around. Obi-Wan dozes now and then, but he’s awake when he becomes aware of Anakin finally stirring. Obi-Wan senses a restlessness in him that he associates with those dreadful nightmares. He hopes that the Force is not so cruel. Not here, not when Anakin is under so much stress in his waking hours too.

(Anakin seems to settle down before he truly wakes up, and if he’s aware of having dreamt anything he doesn’t mention it.)

Morning brings a certain quiet purposefulness. They get up. They change the dressings on each other’s wounds and tell each other that they are going to be okay. They realize they will go mad if all they do is scan the sky for Republic ships that they cannot reasonably expect to appear, not yet. They realize that they will also go mad if they do not try to make some sense of the passage of time. The best they can figure is to count each rotation as half a Standard day.

"Okay, so then seven sunsets makes three—"

"I thought the sun’s set eight times."

They stare. There is no way around this impasse. Either of them could be wrong.

"Ask R2?"

"How's he supposed to know?"

"He isn’t, I only thought, given the abundance of non-standard tricks he comes out with—”

"Well, he doesn't generate that stuff all by himself, Master. I'm sorry I didn't think to code him a _sunset-counting program_!"

"Alright, alright," Obi-Wan says. "We've been here for either three and a half or four days. Simple enough."

Obi-Wan meditates, Anakin tinkers. Obi-Wan reads, Anakin salvages parts from the wreckage for his projects on board. They make progress.

It’s on day three-or-four that Anakin runs cables from the cockpit to build R2 a makeshift charging station, and Obi-Wan gets to his feet and takes a few unsteady steps. Anakin thinks privately that his former master is starting to look himself again, his face as lost that waxy pallor and every healing trace leaves them both a little stronger.

It’s day four-or-five that Anakin coaxes the cruiser’s distress signal to function. Unfortunately they decide to turn it off, because it’s more likely to attract enemies than friends. (The hyperwave transmitter, which could relay a more private message, is evidently irreparable. Anakin is not permitted to reboot it anymore because the fortieth time is not going to be the charm.) Obi-Wan stumbles a full lap across the ship and back. It wears him out for the rest of the evening but it raises both their spirits.

It’s day five-or-six that Obi-Wan notices Anakin’s been dreaming again. When he’s spent the night fidgeting around in his bunk, he gets up in the mornings looking (and, Obi-Wan guesses, feeling,) rather as if he hadn’t rested at all.

Anakin watches Obi-Wan pick at his breakfast with annoyance. So far, Obi-Wan has doggedly insisted that Anakin eat three meals a day even though he knows perfectly well that Anakin loses his appetite during stressful missions. Obi-Wan claimed that this situation was different, and that Anakin needed to take care of himself in order to heal. Evidently this unspoken rule has a double standard, which has Anakin in a huff. As such, he bristles when questioned about the dreams.

“It’s not like they were when—” Anakin fumbles awkwardly, “I mean, I’ve had worse.”

It’s been a few years since that awful business on Tatooine, but they still seem unable to talk about it. Obi-Wan wonders if that stems from a lack of trust. For his part, Obi-Wan realized the day he saw Anakin knighted and with every mission since that he would trust his former padawan with anything. Though it’s discouraging, he acknowledges that that trust might not be reciprocated. It is the nature of padawans, he tells himself, to want to put distance between themselves and their childhoods. To need space. To need independence. The disappointing truth is, Obi-Wan knows there are things that Anakin hides from him.

But this isn’t one of them. “I always forget what was happening before I wake up,” Anakin says sincerely. “I just remember the feeling. That we aren’t safe here.”

“Would you like to meditate on it?”

“No.” he grumbles.

“Well, I am going to do so at any rate,” says Obi-Wan with a little more resigned exasperation than is perhaps called for. Reflecting on distance and trust and Tatooine has given him a touch of Anakin’s grouchy mood.

“Have fun,” Anakin snorts.

Obi-Wan ignores what was clearly an attempt to aggravate him and watches Anakin yank open a hatch with an earsplitting clatter. He scrambles up on top of the cruiser, apparently with some project in mind. At first Obi-Wan can hear the clanking and occasional beeps of him fiddling away with something overhead, but he must tune out the racket to concentrate.

* * *

 

 _It feels vaguely familiar, swinging at the bounty hunter only to suddenly feel his target’s foot connect with his lower stomach and he’s on the ground and she’s rearmed herself and that laugh, that laugh echoes as she squeezes the trigger and_ his eyes fly open.  What in the _galaxy—?_

The sun is halfway across the sky and Anakin finds his face pressed against warm metal and smudged with grease. He is on the roof – what is he doing sleeping on the roof? And what had he been thinking about when he fell asleep – or maybe it was a dream? His gut tells him that he and Obi-Wan are in danger, even more danger than before.

There’s a clicking noise coming from the trees to his left. An animal, maybe. But the Force had obviously been warning him about something, if his stupid brain could only remember what. Anakin strains to remember the details of his dream, but they simply aren’t there.

 _Someone doesn’t want our treaty to get back to Coruscant._ Obi-Wan’s voice echoes in his head. Someone who would go to the trouble of rigging their ship with not only explosives but a scout droid to record the effects of the former is not likely to give up easily. That someone could be on-world right now, concealed in the tropical understory or in the shadow of a hill. His heart is racing now not with fear, but adrenaline. He considers for a full three seconds before deciding to investigate.

The clicking noise chatters away just beyond the treeline as he clambers down, landing lightly in the grass. Anakin throws one final glance over his shoulder at their ship. He’s a fair judge of things that Obi-Wan would consider a “bad idea”, and this probably falls under that umbrella. But a lot of those “bad ideas” have churned out great results in terms of combat missions in the past. This one seems relatively harmless in comparison – all he wants to do is look, maybe snoop around a little. And okay, if it’s clear the newcomer intends to harm them and Anakin reckons he can handle them, then sure, he might engage. It would be foolish to just sit and wait for a surprise attack, he reasons.

He picks his way through the understory, all his senses attuned to the presence of the Force in the jungle. He feels Obi-Wan behind and sure enough, some strange flicker ahead. He finds his way by the rustling sounds and the occasional glimpse of a tall shadow. Every time he thinks he’s come close to the thing, it seems to vanish and appear somewhere else. Whether the enemy is aware of him on their tail, he doesn’t know.

Whoever it is must be about as Force-sensitive as a brick because he can barely sense them, and yet they move with a baffling speed and ease. He is growing tired; he begins to wonder how long he’s been tracking for.

Finally he spots the shadow projected against a tree. He approaches on the balls of his feet, treading silently as only a Jedi can. In a moment his blue blade hums to life in his hand and he swings deftly at the figure…only to watch it dissolve before his eyes. Crouched amid the severed stalks of a bush that Anakin cut through is a spindly-legged droid. Its optic lens wobbles nervously, and it makes the chattering sound that Anakin has been following.

There are no curses in Basic that Anakin knows (and only two in Huttese) that can encompass his frustration. He slices the trembling droid in half, then kicks the pieces for good measure. He’s been led on, like a stupid dog following a scent. He turns on his heel and begins jogging back the way he came. This distraction can’t possibly be a coincidence.

 _[ANAKIN!]_ The Force screams at him, and Anakin’s anger redoubles. He’s not about to run back to Obi-Wan with his tail between his legs. If he shows up without any new information, Obi-Wan will say that the risks he took were unnecessary. Before he even thinks about opening his mind to the Force and his training bond again, he’s got to solve the mystery.

 _[YEAH, I KNOW, OKAY?]_ He snaps. He does not have the time or the patience for this bantha shit. He’ll deal with the inevitable lecture later. Recklessness and foolishness and everything else, yes, he’s heard that one before. He runs.

 _[ANA—]_ Anakin’s not listening anymore. He’s trying to trace the path made by the tiny droid. He stops short on the edge of a hollow in the ground, faced with a giant starship. For just a millisecond he thinks he’s found his way back to the cruiser, but this ship is obviously someone else’s. Maybe he’s onto something after all.

The ship is a medium-sized tug from the Mid Rim, he deduces in a glance. He creeps closer, scoping out the perimeter. Sections of it have been ripped apart and pieced together again from odd parts. Looks like the kind of garbage a bounty hunter would pilot.

Nothing to do now but dive in. His heart is full of adventure again, curious about whomever sent the droid and eager for a fight.

He Force-lifts the side access door half a meter up. After he pulls himself onto the ledge and squeezes through the gap, quieter than a pitten. He lets go and the thing comes crashing down with an echoing thud. He winces, and waits for the lifeform whose signature he senses to react. He can practically hear what Obi-Wan would say. The imagined voice is probably shaking its head and doing that eyebrow thing like he is “very disappointed, Anakin”. Just visualizing it feeds his anger and spurs him onwards regardless.

The starship appears equally slapdash inside. Despite Anakin’s familiarity with the model, he barely recognizes it in all the interior modifications. As he creeps along, he steps on a panel on the ground and trips a magnetic door that appeared to be part of the wall, causing it to slide away. Revealed is a compartment lined with shelves, all stacked neatly with… _no, surely not_.

Anakin steps inside and slides one box off a shelf. One peek inside and there can be no doubt. The compartment is packed floor to ceiling with _land mines_. There must be tens of thousands of credits’ worth. They are the same seemingly innocuous brown packages that such weapons are sold in by Gavorosi factories.

A noise like the cocking of a blaster draws his attention.

“Jedi,” croaks a voice. “Do you know how predictable you are?”

* * *

 

 _[ANAKIN]_ Obi-Wan has been calling out to no avail. The presence in the Force which lurks around the ship does not belong to his fellow Jedi, he is sure of that. He is still nauseous from that morning and wobbles as he stands, but he does what Anakin cannot, trusts the Force to guide him through whatever lies ahead. He is still wearing sleep clothes under his robe and boots, and though his wound prevents him from wearing a belt, he stows his lightsaber in a pocket just in case. He still holds out hope that it won’t come to that.

 _[ANAKIN]_ He tries one last time. Why is it that boy never seems to be around? Obi-Wan just hopes he has not gotten himself into trouble- no, scratch that, he definitely has. Obi-Wan just hopes he has not found trouble that is beyond what he can handle.

He’s never realized how much he takes commlinks for granted when they are available. In barely a whisper, Obi-Wan asks R2-D2 to track Anakin down and bring him back to the ship if possible. R2 blinks the lights on his dome and rolls away in silence. Now. The tricky bit.

As he lowers himself down into the main chamber of the cruiser, he hears a sudden clatter. A small bespectacled man sits hunched over something on the floor. He drops his tools with a startled yelp when he spots Obi-Wan in the entranceway.

“You--you--you weren’t supposed to be here! She said--”

“Who said, exactly?” asks Obi-Wan, taking in the man’s familiar features. “Mr. Hamlen,” he adds with a polite false smile.

“G—G—General Kenobi,” the intruder stammers. He starts to haphazardly gather up the tools scattered around, and what is clearly a bomb halfway installed into the floor panels. “I wasn’t--”

“I rather thought you were honorable enough to accept what your fellow representatives decided,” Obi-Wan quips, remembering how outspoken against the treaty Hamlen had been during the negotiations on Gavoros.

“Your sensors’ll be the end of my factory, Jedi. My clients don’t dare come near ‘em. I’m only worried about my workers, their families, my own!”

“And by ‘clients’, naturally, you mean Separatists. You’d drag your whole planet into war if that got out.”

“And it’d never get out, if you ‘n yours stayed out of it,” He produces a handheld blaster from the folds of his cloak, but does not seem like he’s about to use it.

“You’re wrong.”

He fidgets nervously. “What?”

“Did you think Gavoros would be able to remain neutral after you planted bombs on a Republic ship? Seems you’re fortunate my partner and I landed and caused them to detonate here and not on Coruscant. If you’d appeared to have made an attack on the city, there would have been hell to pay.”

This had evidently not occurred to the man. “She told me—”

“Whoever she is, she used you,” Obi-Wan snaps.

Obi-Wan is feeling short of breath already, and thinks fleetingly that he would like to lean against the wall. Better not to show weakness, though. This man is a coward; whether he will fight depends on who he is more afraid of, Obi-Wan or whoever sent him here.

“She won’t make me kill you,” he blurts wildly. “If you cooperate, if you destroy the treaty, she might even let the other one go,”

“She has Anakin?!” Obi-Wan demands. He draws his lightsaber.

Hamlen’s weapon is dwarfed in comparison, but he holds it at arms’ length with trembling hands. He retreats, but Obi-Wan follows him step for step.

“Tell me what you know.”

“Nothing!” Hamlen squeaks as they continue to move backwards, soon exiting the broken half of the ship into drizzling rain. “She said she would distract you, she said no one would be here so I could—” _Well, rig the ship with land mines to murder you when you return_. The sentence hangs unfinished between them.

He squeezes the trigger. Obi-Wan deflects the bolt almost lazily and returns a saber-swing, intentionally missing just close enough to scare him. “Where is Anakin?”

“I don’t know!” He insists.

Obi-Wan raises his right arm again, and Hamlen shoots twice, missing pathetically. Obi-Wan slices clean through the barrel of the blaster with a disgusted expression. For a moment Hamlen stares in shock at the smoking steel in his hand. Then he flees.

Obi-Wan dashes after him, feeling fire rip across his chest. At peak performance he wouldn’t dream of letting an opponent like this escape, he would almost feel bad for the unfairness of the fight. But his range of movement is quite hindered as things are, not to mention his reflexes or even lung capacity. When his blow misses the sprinting man, he starts running hard. His head spins, and before he knows it Hamlen is gone and he is heaving up the contents of his stomach in the grass in the rain.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *scuttles out from under rock*  
> *apologetically leaves this here*  
> *scuttles back under rock*

When the voice speaks up, Anakin almost drops the land mine he’s holding.

“What’d you mean by that?”

The figure in the entranceway manages to look smug even with a helmet hiding their expression. The helmet’s rebreather makes a small giggle come out terse and grating.

“Crippled, are we?” the bounty hunter taunts, taking in Anakin’s taped foot and the plasters stuck haphazardly across his arm and chin. “Hope your Jedi friend is in better shape than you.”

“You’ll never get to find out,” Anakin growls, drawing his lightsaber but not igniting it. Anakin is reckless, but he is not stupid. The width of the compartment is less than the span of Anakin’s shoulders, he cannot even stand squarely in the entranceway – no room for error with a white-hot blade surrounded by walls of smuggled explosives.

The bounty hunter hasn’t ignited her blade either. One wrong move and they will both meet their ends in a humongous fireball. Anakin retreats several paces without taking his eyes off his opponent.

“I ought to be affronted that you’ve just invited yourself aboard,” she sneers (armor-clad and speaking through a rebreather, the bounty hunter’s gender is impossible to deduce, but Anakin’s head is supplying him with female pronouns for whatever reason) “You were meant to go running back to your own ship, Jedi. But you’ve only made my job simpler.” She’s twirling the saber in one reptilian hand. “Awfully impolite to ruin my poor droid, though.”

Anakin isn’t listening, he’s feeling along the rear wall, praying to find an exit.

“Where _is_ your shadow anyway? I heard the pair of you were never apart,” the bounty hunter continues with half a glance towards the commlink on their wrist.

 _She’s stalling_ , Anakin suddenly realizes. Waiting for someone. A bad feeling permeates his thoughts, the same one he feels when waking up from one of those elusive dreams.

The stalemate hangs heavy in the air for another 15 seconds, when everything seems to happen at once.

The Force warns Anakin that the bounty hunter is about to turn away a full moment before she does so. A great racket on the other side of the door causes her to whip their head around. Anakin seizes his chance to charge through, shoving her out of the way and barreling directly into a stout human figure. The newcomer squeaks as his spectacles go skittering across the floor and he and Anakin land in a heap.

“Hamlen, you moron! Are we ready to get off this rock yet?” The masked bounty hunter demands.

“You said they would both—he was in there, he—the plan—” The little man accuses as he runs a hand nervously through his greying hair.

“Plans change. Did you kill him?”

The look on Hamlen’s face clearly indicates that he did no such thing. Anakin almost laughs - as if this insect of a man would stand a chance against his master. Once he is finished disentangling his limbs from Hamlen’s, he turns that frustration outwards, finally allowing his blade to come to life in his hands. He rounds on his first opponent, who is clearly the greater threat. Neither bounty hunter has more Force presence than the average bantha, yet the Nemiodian must have gotten her lightsaber from somewhere. Anakin has no intention of adding his own to her collection. He cuts and slashes with ferocious vigor. The bounty hunter matches him blow for blow, but seems to be giving ground easily. Too easily? Something about it doesn’t sit right; the ship, as cobbled together as it is, could hold any number of hazards and traps he doesn’t know about. He takes up a new angle, refocusing his attack on driving her towards the side access.

A saber swing accentuated with a side kick finally pushes his foe outside onto the ramp. With a pulse of the Force he springs down onto the soft earth. Rain sizzles around his blade, heat distorting a swath of surrounding air.

A low whistle grabs Anakin’s attention for a split second. R2-D2 peeks out from behind a tree, chiming cheerfully that he is happy he found his master. A swing from the green blade hisses as it grazes a black burn mark on the shoulder of Anakin’s uniform. He forgets about the astromech and focuses his energy on renewing his attack.

Suddenly, a great roar resonates through the jungle. Trees begin to rustle and the grass bows away from the ship in waves. Out of the corner of his eye, Anakin spots R2-D2 trundling up the ramp and vanishing just as the ship’s side access slams shut.

The duelers pause in unison. “R2, get out of there!” Anakin hollers.

The bounty hunter taps the commlink on her wrist. “Hamlen! What sithspit is this!?”

Hamlen seems to have found his courage. “You didn’t tell me the bombs wouldn’t be triggered until impact. Provoking Coruscant was not part of our deal! You jeopardized _everything_! I am going _home_!” The sound of trembling fingers punching in launch codes can be heard.

“Not with my cargo, you’re not!” She seethes, parrying a blow from Anakin. Anakin can now feel the heat emanating from the engines beneath. The tug shoves off and hovers a meter above the ground, swirling dry leaves beneath it. It’s now or never. The desperate bounty hunter leaps upwards, clutching on to the wing and pulling herself on top of the ship. Anakin follows without a thought. He lands hard on his shoulder, rolls through it and keeps on moving. This is the kind of rush he lives for.

Hamlen is still gunning for the atmosphere, which means they have a limited amount of time before they’ll be incinerated, exposed as they are. Knowing this, the bounty hunter diligently sets about carving them a way back into the main body of the ship. Anakin sees his chance and kicks the hilt out of her hand. The green blade remains ignited, wedged in the hull of the tug. She struggles to pull a blaster out of the holster at her hip, but he disarms her of that too with a deft flick of his own blade. It clatters noisily on the hull to their left.

Wind whipping raindrops and strands of hair into his face, Anakin knows it’s almost over. He anticipates that his opponent will move left towards her fallen blaster, but she surprises him by ducking the other way. The bounty hunter laughs in his face as his saber swing cuts through nothing. The blow that didn’t connect only puts him off balance for a heartbeat, but it’s long enough. Anakin drops to the ground when her foot connects with his lower stomach, giving him an overwhelming sense that this has happened before. This time, he raises a hand towards the blaster and sends it skittering over the edge with the Force. While she hisses and tries in vain to summon it back with whatever Dark Side manipulation she possesses, he pushes to his feet and snatches up the green lightsaber still lodged in the hull. When he yanks it out, the circle of steel his opponent had been carving caves inward.

He contemplates jumping to safety. Sure, he’d love to keep tens of thousands of credits’ worth of land mines out of Separatist hands, but that’s somewhat lower on the priority list right now…unless he can accomplish both at the same time.

“R2-D2?!” he roars as he hops down into the ship. He runs without looking or caring where he is, trying to avoid pursuit. He’s never been happier to hear that telltale warble behind him. “R2, lock that door if you can,” he orders, gesturing to a threshold he’s just crossed. That should keep the bounty hunter off their trail for a little while. “Now, we’re only gonna get one shot at this. You gotta help me find that chamber where we entered.”

R2, who apparently has a full layout of the ship already stored in that dome of his, leads the way. At Anakin’s instruction he links with a panel by the side access and lifts the door, causing the ramp to spring out into the empty air. Adrenaline spikes through Anakin as he glances over the side and sees the ground maybe half a kilometer away.

“On my signal, you gotta jump, buddy.” Or roll, or whatever. Anakin is sure R2 gets the point. He presses his toe into the floor panel to open the secret door, ignites the green saber and lobs it hilt-first into the stacks of land mines. “NOW!”

Vaulting over the edge sends a jolt through his entire body which makes Anakin feel spectacularly alive. He points his palms towards the ground, pushing back against the pull of gravity to slow his decent. He lands lightly on the balls of his feet, grinning. It takes the droid a few extra seconds to touch down beside him (those rocket boosters really were a worthwhile feature).

He shields the rain from his eyes with one gloved hand, staring skywards. At first, the starship shows no sign that anything is amiss. A few hundred kilometers later, black smoke begins to billow from the vents underneath. The tug is swallowed up by the storm above, and after a few moments, a reverberating echo can be heard as the clouds are suddenly illuminated with orange light.

Obi-Wan hears the explosion as he shivers in his bunk. Something tells him that it is not thunder. His immediate instinct as that he needs to find Anakin, but considering that not two minutes ago changing out of his wet clothes seemed like too much effort, he admits that he isn’t likely to get very far. It is up to Anakin to protect himself now. He wonders if his former padawan prefers it that way. In the early years of his own knighthood, Obi-Wan had often wished for his master’s reliable presence beside him in battle, but the circumstances had been rather different.

The least the boy could do is respond when Obi-Wan tries to link with him through their bond, and let him feel something beyond just the faint buzzing confirmation that Anakin’s heart is still beating. Anakin does not need his help and Obi-Wan can accept that, but to disappear without a word and leave his old master to imagine all the danger he could be in is just so wildly inconsiderate. Doesn’t he care that Obi-Wan worries about him?

Evidently not, Obi-Wan thinks bitterly when that party comes striding back into the ship with his beloved astromech trailing behind. He looks so pleased with himself that an uncharacteristic spark of anger flickers in Obi-Wan’s chest, augmented by the odd, hot pain he’s been feeling there since his pitiful duel with the Gavrosi man.

“Hullo,” says Anakin, casually snatching a towel from the drawer and squeezing the water from his hair.

Obi-Wan mentally chastises himself for allowing his pain to indulge his emotions. He draws his shields tight and endeavors to cool his head before he speaks. “Where have you been?”

“Where have _you_ been?” Anakin counters. They both look a sight – Anakin in his singed robes, drenched and smug, Obi-Wan enveloped in a blanket, drenched and slightly pale.

“I couldn’t seem to get a hold of you,” Obi-Wan says evenly, “I found out who sabotaged our ship.”

The grin melts off Anakin’s face. “I know, me too. What happened?”

They exchange stories. When Anakin is finished, Obi-Wan asks, “I don’t understand, what was R2 doing on the ship?”

“He won’t say. He said you told him to find me.”

“I did. Since you disappeared _again_.”

“It was just a mistake! I didn’t know it was a diversion!” snaps Anakin.

“That’s not my point. You made a mistake, fine. But you didn’t even tell me you were leaving.”

“Okay, I’m sorry, but I don’t need a lecture right now – I just saved us again, didn’t I? I don’t need to be leashed to you all the time!”

“I’m not upset with you,” Obi-Wan hisses. Maintaining his shields is becoming a monumental effort.

“Are you sure?” Anakin shouts.

“You will control your tone with me, padawan,” The word slips off his tongue out of habit. Before Anakin can react, he continues, “I know you’re very capable, Anakin. I am not criticizing the choices you made today,”

 _…I just want to be included in them sometimes_ , he almost adds. This transition is not one that Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon ever got to experience, so Obi-Wan is not entirely sure how it is meant to play out. Perhaps it is a good thing that Anakin runs off on his own so much, and works without anyone to slow him down. Force knows these days, all Obi-Wan seems to do is slow him down.

“S’probably as close to a ‘good job’ as I’m going to get,” Anakin murmurs as he leaves. He isn’t sure if Obi-Wan hears.

The afternoon passes in a quiet cloud of tension. Anakin notices Obi-Wan is still disconnected from his end of the training bond – out of spite, probably. The rain outside slows to a drizzle with no wind to stir the damp, sultry air. When the second sunset of the day begins, Anakin pulls out the canister of preserved food to find something for supper. They’ve eaten their way through most of the bantha jerky and dried fruit by now, but there are enough of the less appetizing rations to hold them over for at least another week. After that, well…

Every day that goes by without a rescue ship leaves Anakin more stressed, and he knows that’s why he and Obi-Wan are so quick at each other’s throats. But understanding the reason doesn’t make it any easier to keep his mouth shut. Before he knows it he’s calling testily across the ship. “How many portions of these d’you want me to mix up? ‘Cause I don’t want to waste rations if you’re going to make some kriffing excuse not to eat again.”

Without waiting for an answer, he flicks the kettle on and pours two portions of irradiated eggs into a bowl of water, stirring them around impatiently as if that might make them reconstitute faster.

“As if food ever goes to waste when you’re around,”

Obi-Wan stands in the entrance. Anakin hadn’t felt him approach. “You’re still blocking me out?”                                                                                                                                           

“Oh, is it uncomfortable being cut off and not knowing where I am?” Obi-Wan shoots back before he can stop himself. His voice is bitter and strangely low.

“See! I knew you were upset! Look, I tried to apologize.” Anakin protests, but suddenly his heart isn’t in it. Obi-Wan isn’t acting right.

Anakin puts the eggs down on a fold-out table just as Obi-Wan starts to sway. He grabs the older Jedi by both shoulders to steady him. Obi-Wan averts his eyes.

Anakin reels at the rain-soaked fabric beneath his fingers. “Didn’t you even—” Obi-Wan stumbles, tipping forward into Anakin’s grip. “Master, what the hell is going on?”


	7. Chapter 7

“You,” says Anakin as he guides Obi-Wan to sit down on a nearby crate, “Never get to tell me off for hiding an injury again.”

“Anakin, I simply lost my balance for a moment.”

“Jedi don’t ‘simply’ fall over in the doorway.”

“Nobody fell—” Obi-Wan is interrupted by Anakin nudging against his mental shields. The younger Jedi crouches on the floor, eye-level with his former master, waiting with annoyance and concern. Obi-Wan has not yet recovered the full strength of his defenses, but for Anakin to barge through would be an insensitive breach of the privacy and trust between them. Anakin waits until he is (hesitantly) invited in.

The sensations that flow into Anakin’s mind are complicated and confusing – there’s the stab wound, yes, that pain is deep and pronounced compared to the vaguely warm, achy discomfort that radiates out from around it. He feels his eyelids drooping, and snaps back into his own reality.

Obi-wan blinks and looks away, but not before he glimpses Anakin’s frown. 

“And I was supposed to believe you were shielding to teach me a _lesson_?” Anakin hisses. Whether he had been wrong to shut Obi-Wan out while he was investigating the bounty hunters or not, there’s clearly something else going on here. 

“No. I was angry, and you didn’t deserve for me to take it out on you.” Obi-Wan braces against the wall, preparing to push himself to his feet.

“Don’t – get your bearings for a minute,” says Anakin. “What do you mean angry?”

“It was not at you – not for anything that was your fault, anyway. I control my emotions, Anakin, that does not mean I do not have them.”

“I know that.” Anakin says, too quickly. He is of the distinctly un-Jedi-like opinion that if something hurts you should be allowed to make it feel better, and that includes _acting_ angry when one _is_ angry. He only pretends to understand the part of the code that says otherwise. As one of the few things he has ever been unable to succeed at despite his best efforts, it’s a sensitive subject. It would help if Obi-Wan didn’t make it look so easy.

His face a perfect mask, Obi-Wan gets to his feet. “See? Not so bad.”

“You’re sure?”

“I overtaxed myself earlier and it’s caught up to me, that’s all.” He moves past Anakin to retrieve pain tabs from the medpac on the table and retreats slowly, stiff but not unsteady.

Anakin watches him leave with a frown. “Obi-Wan – dry clothes?” he suggests.

“I know.”

Anakin returns to stirring the food. R2-D2 stations himself in the corridor. He still pretends not to hear when asked why he climbed aboard the bounty hunters’ ship (cheeky little thing), but Anakin is thankful to have him nearby. R2 is using his full range to scan for sentient lifeforms - They won’t allow themselves to be snuck up on again.

A few minutes later, just a touch of another mind’s uneasiness flickers in Anakin’s thoughts. Then, as if on cue, “Anakin, come help me with something? Do not panic.”

The last order paradoxically makes Anakin heartrate spike. He finds Obi-Wan half dressed, pressing a wad of gauze to his chest.

“Must have reopened sometime today. It’s under control,” Obi-Wan explains quickly. “I just don’t have enough hands to hold this and unwrap a new patch. Do not panic.” Obi-Wan explains quickly.

To his credit, Anakin does not. The panic is on a back burner, ready to flare up if Anakin deems it justified, but simmering quietly for now. He takes the gauze from Obi-Wan’s hand and blots away the fluid that’s pooling in the puncture. After a moment’s pause, a trickle of blood starts to well up again. Obi-Wan is right, it’s well under control. New pink skin surrounds the edges with the telltale shininess of bacta healing but the center of the wound is grotesque, a bumpy purple-and-red indent oozing just below Obi-Wan’s collarbone.

The bacta patches have healed all that they can, so adding another one on top seems futile. They do it anyway. Anakin thinks that Obi-Wan’s skin feels a bit warm, and the wounded area is swollen – but more swollen than the day before? He doesn’t know. Pain tabs are supposed to relieve mild inflammation and fever, so Anakin does his best not to worry about it. Running about in the rain sometimes warrants a bit of a chill. It will go away now that Obi-Wan is no longer shivering in wet clothes. Speaking of which—

“You know Master, you set a terrible example sometimes.”

Obi-Wan, who has been silent throughout the procedure, tips his head back in a sudden return to full alertness. “Thought I might get some slack after the day I’ve had,” he smirks softly.

“Don’t know where you got that impression.”

Obi-Wan sinks down onto his back and scrubs a hand over his face, sighing.

 “Are you going to sleep?” Anakin asks.

“Only if you stay.” Obi-Wan whispers, his tone accusatory. It's more or less untrue; Obi-Wan’s exhaustion is going to have its way no matter what Anakin does. But he doesn’t want the boy running off again, and he’s not above utilizing any means available to elicit guilty promises.

If Anakin sees the bluff for what it is, he doesn’t show it. The tips of his ears turn pink – does Obi-Wan have so little faith in him? “I’ll stay.”

* * *

 

Rain continues to hammer down through the night and into the morning. When the first sunrise of day seven-or-eight wakes him, Anakin expects to find Obi-Wan back on his feet, either the same as the morning before or perhaps a little bit better. No such luck. Obi-Wan’s face is drained of color, all his strength recovered in the past four days erased. He only shrugs when Anakin asks how he’s doing. With a very bad feeling indeed, Anakin presses a hand to his forehead.

 “Your hand’s cold,” Obi-Wan murmurs.

“No, you’re just warm.” He tosses the medpac onto Obi-Wan’s lap. “Take your temperature.”

Obi-Wan obligingly places the thermogauge under his tongue. The tiny device pips once as it begins its measurement, then twice as it displays the result. It’s a little less than 100 degrees standard, which is really only a touch of fever. Probably nothing.

Obi-Wan’s condition neither improves nor worsens as the day wears on. He seriously considers throwing up after breakfast, avoiding it only through careful meditation. Anakin looks on with concern. Finally, neither can continue to suspend disbelief that all these symptoms are unrelated. The panic that’s been lying dormant in Anakin sparks to life and sets his Force signature abuzz with activity. He uncovers Obi-Wan’s wound to look at it again, under the pretense of changing the dressings. The fluid leaking from the puncture isn’t bloody anymore, it’s clearly pus.

“Obi-Wan, that is _infected_.” Anakin wants to hit something. He was _fine_ , he was getting _better_. Yesterday they’d been discussing how soon they could begin hiking towards the nearest settlement, but it’s looking more and more as if Obi-Wan won’t be going anywhere, unless carried.

“Anakin,” Obi-Wan’s tone is a warning. He’s not feeling perfectly calm himself, but Anakin beside him is toeing the line of a full-blown panic episode. He really _must_ control this kind of behavior. “Don’t make this more theatrical than it needs to be.”

Infection is often overdramatized in historical fiction holovids, where characters can perish or lose limbs from injuries of any size because bacta hasn’t been invented yet. It’s especially prone to happen in really old-timey ones where people use peculiar blasters that shoot bits of metal. But in the real world, nobody dies of infection. The mere thought is ludicrous.

“Don’t tell me you’ve never seen pus before,” Obi-Wan continues. “Breathe, Anakin.”

Anakin has seen pus before. It’s hard not to when bacta supplies run low in the field and all but the worst wounds must be left to heal the old way. Once in a great while, those cuts do get infected. The concept isn’t foreign to Anakin, but this is different. Obi-Wan won’t understand because he’s a proper knight who isn’t tangled up in attachments. He won’t understand why this is different to Anakin because it’s _him_. It’s Obi-Wan, and no one else matters quite this much.

“You need to…you need to f-fix it.” Anakin stammers.

“Breathe.”

“Is it really bad?”

Obi-Wan pauses. It’s hard to gauge the severity, actually. Obi-Wan’s strategy thus far has been to focus on day-to-day details and entrust the rest to the Force. There are too many variables for him to be able to speculate on the big picture, above all when and how he and Anakin will be found. Anakin still struggles with the need to control the big picture, so that advice isn’t going to be helpful to him. Obi-Wan sticks with an honest assessment of the situation.

“It’s just this area that seems infected,” he gestures to the swollen corner of the wound. “I don’t know whether it’s going to spread, but I’m okay for right now. Though it hurts like the blazes.” He punctuates the last remark with half a chuckle. He is reaching out for Anakin in the Force.

Anakin accepts the calming energy flowing through their bond and feels his mind relax somewhat. He turns his gaze to the floor. If he were a proper knight, he wouldn’t need anyone’s help to control his emotions.

“You don’t,” says Obi-Wan.

Drat. Anakin hadn’t intended to share that thought.

“I have faith that you could work it out yourself if you needed to. I only wanted to help.”

Anakin changes the subject. “I can’t wait til we get home so they can dip you for a week.”

Obi-Wan grimaces at the thought. “Force willing, that won’t be necessary.”

“At _least_ a week,” Anakin insists. His fingers drum uncontrollably on the side of the mattress but he is taking deep, slow breaths.

There is no use wishing for bacta when there is none to be had. Anakin finds himself daunted by this new enemy that cannot be cut down with a lightsaber. A man of action, nothing is more aggravating to him than not knowing what to do. Obi-Wan isn’t sure of the best steps to take either, but he makes his educated guesses with forced confidence for Anakin’s sake. He is the master, Anakin is the padawan – in this at least, Anakin is grateful for the security of that role, the responsibility that is not on his shoulders. They clean the surface of the wound as best they can and Obi-Wan decides not to re-bandage it. He reasons their best bet is to expose the wound to air to keep it dry.

“There,” says Anakin with an air of finality as he adds a final dab of antiseptic. They have done everything they can think of, and Obi-Wan is relieved. He curls up with a datapad and reads until he falls back asleep. Anakin almost rolls his eyes – it’s not even midday yet, _honestly_ – but he wishes he could be that calm. Gears in his head still whirring away, Anakin goes to stand sentry with R2-D2, scheming desperately for a new way off this Force-forsaken rock.

* * *

 

When Obi-Wan was making progress it came in slow, steady steps ahead, but now that he’s stumbled Anakin is shocked by how fast he slips. The fever is slight but persistent, and seems to sap the energy from Obi-Wan until even sitting up is a chore. He sleeps more often than not and subsists on small amounts of tea, broth and pain pills. The last time Anakin bullied him into a handful of crackers he spent half an hour heaving into a bucket, so neither of them are keen for him to try any more solid food.

Draining the wound is a daily ordeal that they both come to dread. Obi-Wan holds a basin and prods the wound open with alcohol-soaked tweezers while Anakin flushes greyish pus away from the infection with water. Anakin can never seem to get used to it; the sight and smell make him gag every time. Obi-Wan mumbles resigned apologies, which Anakin waves away even with the other hand clamped over his mouth. ( _“Not your fault it’s so—ugh, kriffing gross—”)_

Despite their best efforts, Obi-Wan’s chest seems to grow more inflamed day by day. Although it’s a low fever, it doesn’t seem to respond to the medicine at all. Anakin just hopes that that doesn’t mean the infection is spreading to the rest of Obi-Wan’s body.

“I wish we had a droid with a medisensor,”

Nearby, R2 beeps sadly.

“You’re perfect the way you are, bud. It’d just be really nice to know if it’s a superficial thing, or—” …well.

Obi-Wan’s condition is deteriorating fast. Anakin pushes him to take all the fluids he can, but between fever sweats and vomiting he’s still dehydrated. He’s tired all the time, Anakin can see it in his eyes. He now relies on Anakin for even the smallest tasks, like pouring tea and arranging all the blankets he’s gathered in his bunk. Anakin doesn’t mind, truly, because his hands don’t fidget when they have something to do.

“I’m sorry,” Obi-Wan whispers one evening as Anakin is reapplying antiseptic ointment to the wound after another pus-draining session.

“Don’t be. I told you, I’m getting used to it,” says Anakin.

“Not just that.” Obi-Wan can’t shake the feeling that, as usual, he’s slowing Anakin down. He isn’t much help to the boy anymore, and certainly not like this. He’s sure Anakin would have found his own way home by now if Obi-Wan were not a distracting dead weight. “I bet you’d devise some brilliant plan if you weren’t stuck with all this.”

“You’re not making any sense, Master.” Anakin rolls his eyes. “Go to sleep.”

* * *

 

Anakin sits beside R2-D2, his legs dangling from the side of the ship. He’s meant to be keeping watch, but the stress of the past several days is weighing on him. He’s pretty sure it’s now day ten-or-eleven, but it might be eleven-or-twelve…either way, he hasn’t slept in a couple sunrises. His eyes droop as he unthinkingly starts to lean into the droid.

R2 honks indignantly at being used as a pillow. Anakin sighs and retreats back inside, the astromech at his heels.

As Anakin is pulling a sleep shirt over his head, R2 begins to whistle and swing his dome around.

“Shh!” Anakin snaps. He glances across the cabin, hoping the racket hasn't disturbed Obi-Wan’s much-needed rest.

R2 ignores Anakin and continues to chatter until a burst of static cuts in, followed by a grainy voice that sounds remarkably like a clone’s:

_“…kywalker…CC-2439 and crew responding to the message sent from this system through an R2 unit…medical evac and currently performing a secure scan…We have just entered the range of your equipment…continue to experience interference from hostile crafts. Do not respond unless you are equipped to do so at the frequency encoded…In absence of a response we will continue safely scanning the Rion system to determine your location.”_

A hopeful grin has snuck across Anakin’s face. “R2, you did it, buddy! D’you hear that?” He turns to Obi-Wan, shaking the sleeping Jedi’s shoulder. “Obi-Wan! We’re going to be rescued.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Allow me to issue a formal written apology to one Obi-Wan Kenobi.

The first thing Obi-Wan is cognizant of is a calloused hand smoothing his hair with slow, gentle motions. Everything hurts; his throat, his head, his heavy limbs. He opens his eyes a fraction, seeing only blurry figures.

“Ah, there you are,” someone says. The sonorous baritone floods Obi-Wan with a childish certainty that he is safe, but the voice seems…out of place. Have they left Rion? Is Anakin alright?

As he parts his lips to ask, the dull burn in his throat turns to stabbing pain. His hand flies instinctively to his face, finding something foreign there and scrabbling to get it away, panic spiking and gag reflex wreaking havoc on his sore respiratory tract.

“No, Obi-Wan,” A hand pries his fingers away from his face and holds them. “It’s alright, it is only a tube. It is to ensure that air can get all the way down to your lungs.”

The speaker’s Force presence is as familiar to Obi-Wan as his own. He can feel the waves of calm rolling off of it, and the single thread of worry carefully hidden underneath.

“You gave us a scare back on Amethia Prime,” the speaker admits. “But the Force tells me it is not your turn yet, Padawan.”

 _Padawan_ …the word echoes, setting off alarms in Obi-Wan’s brain. He knows he is no longer anyone’s padawan. The security of Qui-Gon Jinn’s presence evaporates.

“This isn’t real,” he groans, finding that the breathing tube is gone as well.

Two years into his apprenticeship he had contracted a nasty virus on during a mission and managed to convince his master it was just a bad cough – until his windpipe had all but swollen shut. That was…Force, he didn’t care to think about how many years ago that was now. “It wasn’t real”...

* * *

 

“What? What wasn’t real, Obi-Wan?” Anakin croaks. “Why are you out of bed?”

Obi-Wan hits the ground with a thud and a sharp cry of pain. With a little boost from the Force, Anakin grabs a hold of Obi-Wan and lifts him back into bed, alarmed by the radiating heat beneath his fingers. Obi-Wan’s fever has risen significantly in just a few hours. There’s a hitch in his breath that wasn’t there before. He is distressed about something and keeps mumbling, but Anakin can’t make it out. It seems to involve a padawan and Amethia Prime.

“You’re sick, Master,” Anakin explains. His voice echoes in Obi-Wan’s ears as if he is a kilometer away. “This isn’t…wherever that is. We’re on Rion and we’re going home soon.” _And not a minute too soon,_ he sighs. The voice over the comm had been very clear that he was not to broadcast a distress signal, but it could take days to scan an entire planetary system for a single lost vessel and he just doesn’t want to wait.

Panic begins to bubble again in Anakin, but this time there is no one to talk him through it. Obi-Wan has already gone back to sleep. He feels the pressure building and reaches for their old training bond out of habit. It’s no use. Obi-Wan’s presence in the Force is frail, even smaller than it was after the initial injury.

Anakin suddenly feels like an AT-AT is stepping on his chest. He needs to leave the cabin, he needs to look at something other than the tiny claustrophobic space between the bunks. He leaves with the intention of taking a calming walk around the perimeter of the ship, but somehow he ends up seated against a tree with ice in his veins and spots before his eyes, sucking in gulps of air that never seem to be enough. Everything is going wrong. Obi-Wan is going to die and Anakin is going to die too because his heart is beating so wildly that it is surely on the verge of bursting. Neither of those things are even true and Anakin _knows_ it, but Force it feels so _real_.

A soft computerized tone bleeps beside him. Anakin can’t focus enough to acknowledge R2-D2 with more than a glance. The astromech parks beside him and just waits, not judging. Everybody gets function-overloaded from time to time.

After ten minutes, fifteen minutes, maybe longer, the reassuring thoughts start to feel less like lies, and the panic thoughts aren’t as vivid. His lungs stop demanding more oxygen. All that’s left is a cold, shaky sense of _not okay_. It’s familiar, but disappointing. It’s been a long time since Anakin has experienced an episode like that, because he’s become adept at controlling them and also because Obi-Wan can read the signs and steer him away from that path.

Anakin is exhausted as if he’s just finished a sprint. He knows rationally that there is nothing to panic about. They only have to hang on for a few more days. They aren’t safe yet, but R2-D2’s creativity has given them all a fighting chance.

“I know nobody told you to get on that ship and hijack that smuggler’s hyperwave,” Anakin smiles breathlessly, desperate to change the subject. “You’re something else, buddy.”

If a droid had feathers to puff out, R2’s would be in full plume. He bleeps that of course he knows that.

* * *

 

Dawn breaks and Obi-Wan’s head is clearer. Not clear enough, however, to notice the hangover of anxiety still coursing through Anakin’s Force signature.

Anakin is terrified and determined not to lose control again. The worst thing about panicking is feeling helpless, so he makes it his mission to be helpful instead. The pain tabs seem a bit like using a child’s water blaster against a forest fire, but they’re all that Anakin has to give him. Doing something is infinitely better than doing nothing.

Obi-Wan is too weak to direct the Force in any way, not even to stop feelings from spilling over into Anakin’s side of the training bond. Anakin discovers he can feel what Obi-Wan is feeling with the slightest touch, and uses this as a way to check on Obi-Wan almost obsessively.

Obi-Wan catches him at it eventually, when Anakin lingers too long and the nausea gets to him. Obi-Wan watches him touch two fingers to his lips, looking green for a fleeting moment.

“Get out of my head,” Obi-Wan smirks softly, his voice still half a whisper. Anakin doesn’t think it’s very funny.

“It’s getting worse.”

“Just more of the same, really.” Obi-Wan shrugs like that’s supposed to make Anakin feel better. As if.

The hours pass slowly. Obi-Wan can’t keep medicine down, and no amount of blankets is ever warm enough as dehydration drives his temperature up. A deep contusion appears on the opposite side of Obi-Wan’s chest, where his injured ribs are. The original bruises are a faded yellow now, but this new injury blooms deep purple and scarlet. The tiny rasp in his breath doesn’t go away.

By nightfall, Obi-Wan is delirious again. Anakin builds walls around his own fears as he listens and placates. He punctuates Obi-Wan’s long rambles with repeated assertions that he is Anakin, not Qui-Gon Jinn nor Darth Tyranus, nor Mace Windu nor Tahl (who in nine hells is Tahl anyway?), and that they are stranded on Rion, not any of the unsavory locales that the fever supplies to Obi-Wan’s imagination. The life energy that Anakin senses from him continues to grow fainter and fainter. He’s completely drained, and not just physically.

But Anakin is nothing if not stubborn. He spends half an hour trying to coax a few sips of water down Obi-Wan’s throat, only to see his efforts squandered in another round of vomiting.

No one sleeps that night. Anakin’s eyes are so tired they feel sore, but despite his best efforts he is wide awake with excruciating pressure on his chest. He is afraid he won’t be able to stop the panic. Anakin works on pushing all the air out of his lungs, then filling them back up again through his nose. He’s not the Jedi he should be, a proper knight would never feel these things. He tries to imagine it flowing out of him into the Force like Obi-Wan always tells him to.

Anakin gives up on visualization, it’s never really worked for him before so he doesn’t expect it to now. But the inevitable squeezing pain doesn’t come. A new feeling fills him instead, hardened and practical. He simply cannot afford to give in to fear now, so he doesn’t. It’s not quite the same as crumpling up thoughts and shoving them away to be dealt with later…it’s more deliberate. He hears both voices in his head, and dismisses the panicky one because Obi-Wan needs him here and alert.

It seems every time Obi-Wan gets comfortable enough to drift off, he is compelled to lean over the side of the bunk and spit up again. It’s been so long since he could keep anything down that all that’s left is stomach acid. The next time it happens, Anakin moves to his side with a cool cloth in hand.

“It’s alright,” he whispers both to Obi-Wan and himself. When the retching subsides, he tries to clean up Obi-Wan’s face a bit. Obi-Wan flinches from the touch of the cloth – no doubt his body’s perception of temperature is all kriffed up.

Anakin cannot comfort him through the Force, so he awkwardly perches on Obi-Wan’s bunk and puts a supportive hand on his old master’s shoulder.

Not even twenty minutes passes before Obi-Wan is dry-heaving into the bucket again, face contorted and looking almost miserable enough to cry. Everything hurts and it is pushing him to a breaking point. Anakin grits his teeth as he watches. Jedi are meant to be powerful, aren’t they? So why is he so powerless now? Anakin thinks of how he would transfer all this pain to himself or almost anyone else to spare Obi-Wan from it, if only he could.

“It’s alright,” Anakin keeps mumbling. Obi-Wan leans back and more or less collapses into him, clutching Anakin’s cybernetic wrist in one hand and resting his head on his former padawan’s chest.

It feels backwards. Obi-Wan normally lives behind such a careful façade of cool eloquence that it’s strange to imagine him needing comfort from anyone. Certainly not Anakin. Anakin is the one whose emotions run wild without Obi-Wan’s gentle guidance. The master is the caregiver and the padawan is cared for, that’s the way of things. But Anakin and Obi-Wan have left that time in their lives behind. Maybe they are more than that now. Maybe it’s not backwards at all.

Anakin’s free hand combs through Obi-Wan’s hair, gently brushing it out of his eyes. For a moment, Obi-Wan seems to understand what’s going on and lifts his head away from Anakin’s touch, self-conscious.

“Shh,” Anakin whispers. “You used to do this for me, remember?”

Obi-Wan sighs and allows Anakin to continue. It’s an odd and lonely feeling, being too weak to sense the Force around him. Instead, the rise and fall of Anakin’s chest becomes a constant anchor. Anakin will never know how much Obi-Wan clings to it as hours tick by and the fever grips him tighter.

“I just wish,” Obi-Wan slurs. _Oh, here we go,_ thinks Anakin. Obi-Wan’s labored breathing is obvious as he tries to speak.

“’Just wish he wouldn’t try so hard to put distance between us. Every time I turn around—“

Anakin rolls his eyes, wondering who Obi-Wan is talking to this time. He can probably rule out Darth Tyranus because there hasn’t been any shouting yet.

“I never wanted to hold him back, Master.” ( _Ah, so it’s Qui-Gon again_ ) “It…tests me, when he runs away and leaves me out, but I mustn’t fear loss. The Grandmaster would say…he’s only trying to grow up, he’s a grown knight, a truly great one. You’d be proud, I think…”

Guilt drops like a heavy weight in Anakin’s stomach as he realizes exactly what he is listening to.

“Master, I’m right here. Anakin,” he says, stroking Obi-Wan's hair again. Obi-Wan hasn’t vomited in several hours, but that’s not as comforting as Anakin would have expected. It’s a mark of exhaustion more than anything else. He’s in bad shape, with sunken eyes and burning skin, and, to Anakin’s dismay, tender red streaks creeping out from the puncture in his chest, tracing the paths of major blood vessels in the area.

“I’m not going anywhere, I swear.”

* * *

 

Anakin must fall asleep at some point, because he finds himself waking up. Obi-Wan is still half lying on top of him, staring at nothing with glassy eyes. Force knows how long he’s been in limbo between wakefulness and sleep, or if he got any rest in the night. Anakin can’t get much of a response out of him, but he doesn’t object to a thermogauge being held under his tongue.

Anakin’s heart sinks lower as the numbers on the display tick higher. By the second pip, it’s showing 105.4 degrees Standard. Anakin is not entirely sure at what point a fever becomes dangerous to one’s internal organs, but he decides he doesn’t want to find out.

“Obi-Wan,” he waits for an affirmation that his former master can hear him. A soft groan of discomfort is all he gets. “We have to bring your temperature down.”

The words gloss over Obi-Wan with no meanings attached; it is taking all his mental power just to keep Anakin’s face in focus. As such, it comes as a surprise to him when suddenly all the covers are being pulled away, letting the unrelenting cold in. He angrily grabs a fistful of blankets.

Anakin tugs at the blanket again, and Obi-Wan tugs back, clutching it to his chest. They lock eyes.

“Trust me,” Anakin practically begs.

Slowly, Obi-Wan’s fingers relinquish their grip on the blanket. He does trust Anakin. He knows this, despite every nerve in his body protesting. He shudders once, involuntarily.

Anakin is trying to get his attention again.

“It’s not going to feel like it, but I swear this is lukewarm water,” he warns sympathetically.

When the cloth touches Obi-Wan’s forehead, it’s suddenly hard to remember that he trusts Anakin. It might as well be bare ice that Anakin is running across his face. When the frozen wet cold touches the nerves at the back of his neck, it’s too much.

“Stop,” Obi-Wan yelps, starting to sit up. “Don’t—”

“I have to,” Anakin whines. That resolute feeling flickers in his thoughts again, assuring him that panicking is just not an option.

The last thing Anakin wants to do is cause his former master more pain. He thinks he might be brave enough now to do what he couldn’t before. “Would you want to be out for this part?” he asks timidly. “Would that help?”

Obi-Wan tilts his head, panting, confused.

“Do you want me to try and put you in a trance, Master?”

Anakin wants desperately for Obi-Wan to refuse; he is afraid to be that much more alone in this desolate place. The same fear kept him from putting Obi-Wan under to remove the painful wool bandage days (weeks?) ago. He’d felt horribly guilty then, but he’d still put his own needs first. This time he is determined to do better.

“I’ll be right here when you wake up, I promise.”

They linger on each other’s gazes. Anakin is forcing himself to prepare for the possibility that he won’t be able to wake Obi-Wan up. The coma-like state of a restful trance will help conserve Obi-Wan’s energy, which is likely their safest option, but Obi-Wan is so exhausted that they might need a professional healer to reverse it. There’s also the possibility that Obi-Wan will never wake up at all, but that isn’t one that Anakin is willing to prepare for.

Obi-Wan is not considering any of these possibilities. His only groggy thought is of Anakin. He trusts the boy to make the right choice – he always does, when it matters.

Obi-Wan gives a single incline of his head, which Anakin understands to be a nod. He swallows hard and places a hand on Obi-Wan’s shoulder, feeling the Living Force flow through his fingertips. It’s too easy. Obi-Wan’s control of the Force is so feeble that he succumbs as effortlessly as any Force-dull fool on the street. A gentle nudge, a wave that ripples through Obi-Wan making everything feel too heavy all at once. His eyelids droop shut, and that’s that.

Anakin picks up the cold compress again and traces a line from Obi-Wan’s shoulder to the inside of his elbow. He tries not to focus on the strangeness of the quiet around him, seeing Obi-Wan without feeling him in the Force. He moves the cloth around, back and forth across his ill master’s dry skin, praying that it eases Obi-Wan’s fever. His thoughts stray to the medevac that is out there, somewhere. He imagines he can make it appear faster through sheer concentration.

As Anakin works, Obi-Wan goes from quaking faintly from the cool air in the cabin to visibly convulsing, with teeth chattering and violent shudders racking his whole body. Anakin’s first frightened thought is of a seizure, but he quickly dismisses the idea. Obi-Wan is shivering. That won’t do. The movement is going to increase Obi-Wan’s fever faster than anything Anakin does to lower it. Heaving a great sigh, Anakin puts the damp cloth down and untangles the lightest blanket from the pile at Obi-Wan’s feet.

He places the single blanket over Obi-Wan and takes his temperature again, discouraged to see almost no improvement. With a pulse of Force energy Anakin lifts the trance, but Obi-Wan sleeps on.

* * *

 

_Illustration from my art trade with the lovely RavenclawHobbit, shared here with permission :)_

 

Anakin does not leave Obi-Wan’s side. He curls up in the bunk again, fingers wrapped around Obi-Wan’s wrist so he can always feel the thready pulse there. Sometimes he counts the beats to distract himself.

In the middle of the night, Obi-Wan’s blood pressure plummets without warning. His heart starts working double-time to keep him perfusing, but his wheezing breaths become so shallow that Anakin can no longer feel his chest rising and falling. Where the Force had previously been growing weaker in Obi-Wan, suddenly Anakin feels it surging up, so much brighter and stronger. He doesn’t know what that means and it terrifies him.

“Obi-Wan?” Anakin shakes him by the shoulders perhaps a little harder than necessary. “Obi-Wan!”

 _You can’t have him!_ He tells the Force. Maybe that’s an attachment, and maybe it makes him a rubbish knight (he’s always held that fear close to his heart and fed it carefully with disapproval, real or imagined, found in the offhand comments and glares from other Jedi). But the truth is, he will not be okay if Obi-Wan is not okay. He digs his fingers harder into Obi-Wan’s wrist, daring the Force to let that rhythm falter. Fear, but also something bigger and blacker and fiercer, is burning in him.

They’re running out of time. Anakin’s options are limited. He can’t give Obi-Wan anything by mouth for fear of choking him. Bacta patches, the Republic’s favorite cure-all, only made the problem worse. But Anakin cannot, will not, do nothing.

“R2, turn the distress signal on.”

The droid burbles a confused response.

“I don’t care if anything finds us, I’ll fight them. If it gets the evac here faster it’ll be worth it.”

R2-D2 beeps.

“Well, who’s your master, some blockhead on the comm or me? Turn the signal on!”

With a sarcastic bleep, R2 obeys. Anakin is struck by the urge to kick him. “He’s _dying_ , you tin can,” Anakin sulks. That’s the truth of it. It’s not fair, infection is something that people died from centuries ago, before bacta was invented. This shouldn’t be happening. _There is no death, there is the Force._ Ironically it’s Obi-Wan’s voice in his head that chastises him.

“You can shut up too,” he whispers to the Obi-Wan in his head. He is fighting hard to keep the squeezing panic at bay, feeling eaten alive by raw emotion that he can’t control. At this point, he doesn’t bother to try. He will never be a proper Jedi, that’s evident to him. He expects to feel ashamed, but right now it seems such a trivial thing. It makes no difference, so long as his master beside him manages to draw in that next breath. And the next. And the next.

* * *

 

Anakin is focused so intently on the feeble pulse racing beneath his fingertips that he almost doesn’t hear.

It starts with a great rustling of leaves in hot wind. Then an engine’s roar can be heard. It hums as it grows closer and the great clanking impact shakes the Jedi’s busted cruiser. Someone’s out there.

 


	9. Chapter 9

Engines idle and voices shout and footsteps pound outside. Anakin freezes. He momentarily forgets to wonder who it could be, he only remembers that he wasn’t supposed to reveal their position but he did and now somebody’s out there and he will never, ever let them hurt Obi-Wan.

Anakin’s fingers still grip Obi-Wan’s wrist, obsessing over every tiny beat of his pulse. The panicky voice reminds him that if he lets go, that feeble rhythm will stop and all will be lost _No it won’t, no it won’t, stop it, that doesn’t even make sense._

Three shadows fall across the dawn light pouring in from the demolished side of the cruiser. Boots clunk on the durasteel hull, clambering aboard. Anakin gropes for his lightsaber, finding that he is not wearing his belt. He eyes the three figures like a feral animal. The tallest one, a redheaded human wearing a rucksack wider than she is, smiles as she speaks to Anakin but her words are drowned out by the buzzing in his ears. Anakin might have noticed how they held their weapons in a nonthreatening position. He might have noticed how two of them were twisting off helmets to reveal familiar identical faces. He might have noticed, if his blood wasn’t turning to ice again, if his ribcage wasn’t being compressed by wild, disproportionate fear.

It all happens so fast. The tallest of the three hurries closer and crouches near Obi-Wan’s head. Before she can touch him, Anakin sits bolt upright and throws his arm out, sending her sliding backwards into the wall with a heave of the Force. The two clone troopers react reflexively. They each grab one of Anakin’s arms and move him to the bunk opposite, forcing him to let go of Obi-Wan, though he shouts and manages to kick one in the knee. The third newcomer is unharmed, and returns to assessing Obi-Wan’s condition.

The troopers’ reassuring voices begin to come into focus, and Anakin begins to recognize them. They are Republic soldiers. Friends, not enemies. They hold him still and allow him to watch their companion fit an oxygen mask over Obi-Wan’s mouth and nose. What Anakin feels isn’t relief yet, just a hollowness in the absence of fear. He doesn’t react to the quick stinging sensation of a hypospray in his neck.

* * *

 

It finally sinks in when they are taking off – the burden that has been lifted from Anakin’s shoulders. No one is counting on him for medical decisions that he isn’t qualified to make.

Relief and dread chase each other in circles through Anakin’s mind, but both are muffled by the heavy lull of sedation. He sluggishly allows himself to be guided into a medbay seat and loosely buckled in. He can see Obi-Wan from across the aisle – well, he sees the backs of medics, mostly. Now and then he tries to ask them questions as they walk by, but their brief responses tell him nothing.

It’s 14 hours to Coruscant. They pass in a blur.

Help is standing by when they arrive at the Jedi Temple. Obi-Wan is rushed to the Halls of Healing by hoverstretcher. Anakin follows, his feet unsteady even though whatever they drugged him with has worn off by now. He resentfully puts up with the clone medic’s arm around his waist.

Anakin perches on the edge of a half-reclined bed in the emergency ward. It’s the only part of the Halls of Healing that actually looks like a medcenter, all sterile white walls and harsh lighting. Anakin’s fingers drum anxiously on the side of the bed as he watches the Chief Healer, Vokara Che, bent over Obi-Wan with her usual stern frown. He can almost see the Force warp around her fingertips, and sense the healing energy she is directing to Obi-Wan, weakening the bacteria’s hold in his bloodstream. A little IM-6 droid shuffles around her, hooking up monitors and fluids and drawing blood. Obi-Wan is agitated. Being moved was obviously a strain on him. His eyelids flutter for a moment, and Master Che quickly touches two fingers to his temple to steady him and keep him insensible of the pain.

Anakin feels a pinch in the back of his hand and realizes the little droid has finished with Obi-Wan and rounded on him with an IV drip. Its robotic voice informs him that according to its preliminary scan he is concussed and dehydrated. It steadfastly ignores Anakin’s attempts to shoo it away, so in the end he just lets it do what it wants.

A single trill of a monitor makes Anakin’s head snap up. Obi-Wan’s blood pressure is dropping again, fast. Anakin watches as if in slow motion as Master Che redoubles her efforts and another healer uncaps a stim shot from a nearby crash cart and administers it to Obi-Wan’s thigh with a well-practiced motion. But it’s too little, too late.

More alarms, rushing feet and shouted orders join the racket. Suddenly Obi-Wan’s not breathing and his heart’s not beating and the little IM droid is reciting protocols for cardiac arrest and warning all sentient beings to stand clear.

Anakin yanks the drip out of his hand and upsets the crash cart full of instruments on his way to Obi-Wan’s bedside, only to be apprehended by a padawan healer. The padawan holds Anakin by the wrists and begs him to sit back down. He stutters as he promises that Anakin won’t be sedated again if he lets the healers do their jobs. The boy can’t be a day over 15, and he looks terrified as he mops up the blood trickling down towards Anakin’s elbow.

By the time Anakin is sorted they’ve restarted Obi-Wan’s heart. The healers are placing an endotracheal tube and pumping oxygen in and out of Obi-Wan’s lungs for him. Everyone watches with trepidation as his vitals even out.

“Knight Skywalker,” says Master Che tersely, turning to Anakin for a moment. “None of that.”

Now that the moment of danger has passed, Anakin is mortified by his outburst. He is no longer alone in the jungle with Obi-Wan, there are other people here, other _Jedi_.

The Twi’lek healer glances quickly over Anakin’s chart. “There’s no need for you to be in emergency care.” She says shortly. “Let’s get you admitted properly, that concussion needs looking after.”

It takes Anakin a moment to work out what that means. “Wait, I can’t—” _leave him_ , Anakin thinks desperately. He’d promised to be there when Obi-Wan woke up, but he has the good sense not to mention that fevered conversation and get them both in trouble. “Obi-Wan—”

“—Is in good hands, with no need of your interruptions.” Master Che finishes. She nods to the padawan healer, indicating that he should go find Anakin a bed in a regular ward.

Anakin isn’t sure whether to get angry or cry. He doesn’t want a room full of onlookers to see either, and it will likely give them more reason not to let him stay.

“But I can come back, you’ll come get me if…if he…needs me here?” he asks in a strained voice.

Master Che nods with an uncharacteristically gentle expression.

The unnatural rise and fall of Obi-Wan’s chest and the ventilator’s jarring sounds are making Anakin feel ill. Everything is going wrong, Obi-Wan could crash again at any moment, could be snatched away from him.  The fire that had flickered in him when Obi-Wan was at his worst on Rion rears its head again. It tastes like blood and Tatooine sand, and memories he'd rather forget. He is afraid of who he will hurt, and what will become of his mind if he loses Obi-Wan too.

Now is not the time to fall apart. It’s forbidden for Anakin to care this deeply and jealously. He feels himself shutting down, becoming deaf to the thoughts that were screaming at him to do something, to fix it, or at least die trying. But he can’t fix this. Resigned to his powerlessness, he cooperates when the padawan returns to bring him to another room.

Anakin expects the emotion to come flooding back in once he’s alone, and he doesn’t have to feign the poise of a Jedi. He expects to feel the fear and grief and shame and anger mixing and reacting in his mind. Instead he only feels emptiness, hugging his knees to his chest in silence. Somehow that’s even worse.

* * *

 

_“You must keep fighting, dear one,” Qui-Gon murmurs, gently caressing his padawan’s face._

_Obi-Wan is a boy on Amethia Prime again, and it was only a bad cough, no, really…This time he remembers not to try and speak._

_“It is essential, even more now than it was years ago. The fate of the galaxy is still tied to you both. Fight, Obi-Wan.”_

* * *

 

Obi-Wan heaves one deep, shuddering breath of his own accord, causing the machine to pause.

“There you are, Kenobi,” says Master Che approvingly. “Now again.”

* * *

 

_“Just like that, love. You’re doing so well.”_

_Obi-Wan squeezes his master’s hand to show that he heard. But he’s so, so tired…_

_“Rest a while, then try another. You mustn’t give up.” Qui-Gon whispers. There’s a pregnant pause, and then, “There is hope for him yet. But your loss will break him.”_

_Him? Qui-Gon refers to Anakin, surely. What does his grown padawan need hope for? Has he fallen ill as well? And on that confusing note, Master Jinn has vanished._

* * *

 

Master Che watches expectantly for a few minutes, to no avail. It takes almost an hour for Obi-Wan to rally the strength to breathe against the ventilator again. But the important thing is, he does it. That’s enough for now.

* * *

 

Anakin is curled into a ball when Master Che finally makes her way to check on him. It is no wonder that members of the council whisper about the boy and his penchant for emotional behavior.

The Twi’lek healer checks her own observations against the rescue team’s report with more precision than any scanner. “How long ago did you sprain this?” she frowns when she picks up his ankle.

“How long ago was the crash?” Anakin asks dully.

“You were missing for 19 days,” says Master Che.

“Then 19 days ago, Master.”

She purses her lips, impressed. 19 days, and Anakin’s ankle is healed to the point that a field medisensor didn’t detect any injury. Master Che knows from experience (Anakin is hardly a stranger in the Halls of Healing) that his body repairs itself with remarkable speed, even for a Jedi. “Did you splint it yourself?”

“Obi-Wan helped,” Anakin admits. “Master—?”

“We are doing all we can for him," Master Che assures him.

“But is he--will he--?”

“Septic shock is no trifling matter," Che admits. "We can let the technology take some of the burden from him for a while, and hopefully get him in a bacta tank once he’s stable enough, but it’s going to come down to him. He will either fight his way out, or he won’t. I’m sorry.”

Anakin absorbs this information in sullen silence as Master Che examines what remains of the knot on his head. He can sense her assessing the damage through the Force.

“That was a nasty concussion, but it looks to be healing pretty well. I’m keeping you overnight just on principle, but I’ll only have the Council limit your duties for two to three weeks, sound fair?”

Still no response. Master Che is unsure whether to be annoyed or concerned – it’s hard to tell with that one. “You know how to call if there’s something you need.” She offers him a grim smile. “Get some rest.”

* * *

 

Anakin doesn’t even look up when someone knocks on the doorframe (a useless courtesy, seeing as the doorframe doesn’t actually have a door). He assumes it’s just another padawan healer here to take his vitals and skirt around his questions after Obi-Wan’s condition. But instead, a Mon Cal healer asks him whether he feels up to having visitors. He shrugs noncommittally.

“Anakin,” Anakin’s heart skips a beat when he hears her voice. Padme is grinning from ear to ear. “You’re alright, thank goodness!”

Anakin can’t bring himself to smile back, but he mumbles, “I missed you.”

They can’t be too free with one another, not here, with people everywhere bustling back and forth outside the open door. Padme sits on the corner of his bed and immediately stands up again; even that feels too intimate.

“What’s all that?” he asks, gesturing to a bantha-hide satchel slung over her shoulder.

“Datapads, paperwork about the Cronau sensors on Gavoros. The healer on call wasn’t sure whether you should be disturbed, but,” she smiles mischievously. “The Senate simply can’t _wait_ to get an update about our treaty.”

“Were any other senators so eager to hear from me, or just you?”

“Shh!”

Padme sets the bag down against the wall with no intention of using its contents. They exchange tactful words with none of their usual hidden gestures and intonations. It becomes more and more apparent to Padme that something is seriously wrong, Anakin is not himself. Even after a taxing mission it’s not like him to behave this way, so guarded and lethargic. She inadvertently stumbles upon the answer when the conversation turns to, “And how is Obi-Wan doing?”

She says it so lightly, he realizes she has no idea. He doesn’t attempt to give words to any of the images that resurface in his memory, he only shakes his head and speaks tonelessly.

“Not good. They sent me away, they won’t…they won’t tell me anything.” By the end of the sentence his voice becomes a whisper.

Padme’s eyes widen in concern for both of her friends. There is nothing to say that doesn’t sound forced and hollow.

“Not knowing makes it hard,” she says at last, allowing her fingers to brush against his for a brief moment. Obi-Wan is a dear friend to her, and to Anakin he is a father and a brother, the only family he has left. They don’t even try to act out the farce that Padme is here to talk business with him. She pulls up a chair beside the bed and waits with him.

* * *

 

“Senator Amidala, I must insist that you let my patient sleep.”

“Of course, Master,” says Padme courteously.

“No, stay,” Anakin growls.

Master Che frowns severely. “Skywalker, you’ve been sitting in that exact position making that exact brooding face for _three hours_. This isn’t helping Obi-Wan. I can sense the exhaustion from your Force signature all the way over here.”

“Don’t make her go.”

Padme hesitates for a moment, then stands up with sudden purpose. “Master Che is right, Ani—ahem, Anakin. I’ve bothered you for far too long already. This senate business can certainly wait.”

Her words hit Anakin like a slap in the face.

“I’m sure we shall see each other soon. I’m happy that you’re safe, Anakin,” Padme tells him as she takes her leave. She casts a meaningful glance over her shoulder as she goes. How he’s supposed to interpret that, he doesn’t know.

Master Che ignores Anakin’s glower as she checks over his monitors. Anakin keeps his mental shields drawn tight, even when she places a hand on his shoulder, trying to place a sleep suggestion in his mind.

“Skywalker,” she warns.

Anakin shakes his head no, drawing his knees tighter against his chest.

“Fine.” Master Che is through with this temper tantrum. Anakin is stubborn and overtired, as he often is when he ends up in her care. Pushing himself past his limits, always. She stands up with arms folded. “If you can’t calm yourself down,” she begins matter-of-factly, watching his red-rimmed eyes to gauge his reaction. “And you refuse to let anyone else do it, I would like you to take a soporific.”

“I don’t need that,” he huffs.

“You do,” she informs him. “I can give you something that won’t knock you out, just make you drowsy so you fall asleep on your own. We’ll be able to wake you up immediately should anything require your attention.”

 _If Obi-Wan starts dying again, that’s what that means._ “No thank you.”

“The Force accelerates the effects of treatment and rest, Skywalker, it does _not_ replace them. I strongly advise you to reconsider.”

“ _No_.”

Master Che sighs. One of the wonderful things about the human body is it will not allow itself to be pushed indefinitely. She hopes Anakin does not intend to scowl and stare at his knees until he physically collapses, but one way or another he will have to rest. She leaves him to it.

‘Scowl and stare’ does seem to be the entirety of Anakin’s plan for the time being. He longs for any feeling at all to fill the cold numb space inside him. The spark of interest that returned to his mind when Padme arrived disappeared when she left again.

The ward quiets down as night approaches. Fewer healers stride up and down the open corridor. The sounds of other patients talking and moving about subside. A droid comes around with supper, which Anakin makes a halfhearted attempt to pick at. He pointedly ignores the three pink tablets sitting on the corner of the tray.

Anakin hears footsteps approaching, but there is no knock on the doorframe. Just a whisper calling, “Anakin!”

He lifts his gaze for what feels like the first time in hours. “Padme?”

“Shhh, it’s best if no one knows I’m in here. But listen, I did some poking around for you.”

So she hadn’t left the Temple after all. Anakin should have known his wife wouldn’t abandon him so easily. He looks at her expectantly as she sits down to report her findings.

“Officially speaking, Obi-Wan is ‘critical but stable,’” she begins. “He’s…he’s on a ventilator, Anakin.”

“I already knew that,” says Anakin. “What else?”

“He was scheduled for surgery about an hour ago. They had to remove a lot of infected tissue from his chest and set a broken rib. As far as I know it went smoothly.”

“And?”

“That’s as much as I got out of the droid before it figured out I didn’t actually have clearance to be up there.”

Anakin pauses for a moment before smiling. “Identity fraud and distribution of confidential medical data? Sounds like a potential scandal, Senator.” For just a moment, he looks like Anakin again, instead of a shell-shocked overtired crash survivor.

“I can’t seem to stop risking my career for you, dear,” Padme shoots back. She glances to make sure the coast is clear before she puts an arm around Anakin’s shoulder and squeezes it.

A somber mood settles back over them. “I should be with him,” says Anakin.

“Ani, no one expects you to—”

“No, I should. I promised. When he was losing consciousness, I told him I would be there when he woke up.”

“He’ll understand.”

“Yeah, _eventually_ , but…” Obi-Wan will not fault Anakin for following healer’s orders, not when he’s thinking properly. But Anakin keeps flashing back to when Obi-Wan was delirious, and the quiet, dejected way he had spoken about Anakin growing up and never being there. When Obi-Wan awakens, drugged and disoriented, Anakin needs to be there.

Padme is silent. She has a gleam in her eyes that tells Anakin she has an idea. When he sees that face in senate meetings, he knows she’s about to get her way.

“What?” he finally asks.

“I know the floor and room number. If you really...if it’s that important.”

* * *

 

It takes a while for Anakin to find a way to disable his high-tech medisensor without triggering alarms which would bring healers rushing over to find out why he suddenly has no vital signs. It’s tricky to accomplish one-handed, since the thing is clipped around his left index finger. He basically sets it to report the last five minutes’ worth of data back to the main server on an infinite loop.

It takes a while longer to find the hallway clear and stealthily move their way up to the intensive care ward where Obi-Wan is. When they slip into the room, Anakin is struck by how small the elder Jedi looks, framed by machines that seem to loom over him. Most obvious is the vent which obscures his mouth and nose and fills the room with its unsettling hums and whooshes. A tube protruding from between his ribs drains brown fluid down into a container on the floor. At least four IV bags run into a single catheter in his arm.

Anakin crouches beside the bed, but seems reluctant to touch Obi-Wan at first. Padme lingers a few paces behind. “Ani, listen!”

Anakin heard it too. While the ventilator idly hummed, Obi-Wan had taken a tiny gasp of air. A moment later, it happens again. Obi-Wan is making attempts here and there, punctuating the vent’s ominous hisses with real, organic inhales and exhales.

Anakin curls his fingers around Obi-Wan’s wrist again. It might be his imagination, but he thinks the pulse he finds there is already a little stronger, steadier.

Footsteps enter the room and freeze, perplexed. A healer is staring at them, thoroughly confused. Padme leaps up, but before she can form a coherent excuse the healer strides off in the other direction and returns with Master Che in tow.

The Twi’lek healer glares with a ferocity that might have made even Grandmaster Yoda think twice. “Skywalker. Amidala.” She sighs, raising a knowing eyebrow. “Surely your _senate business_ cannot be _this_ urgent?”


	10. Chapter 10

At the sound of Master Che’s voice, both Padme and Anakin’s heads snap up.

Anakin Skywalker is never far from Obi-Wan Kenobi for long, and he’s also notorious for bolting from the Halls of Healing and field medics’ tents alike when he doesn’t feel he needs to be there. Knowing this, it’s hardly a surprise to find _him_ out of bed. However, like many, Vokara Che is fascinated to learn that the virtuous Naboo Senator also has a rebellious streak.

For half a moment, Padme looks like a youngling caught out of bounds, but her dignified mask quickly returns. While Anakin withers apologetically under the master healer’s glare, Padme launches unabashed into an explanation of why, after experiencing considerable trauma, Anakin needs to be informed and allowed near the person he experienced it with. She is bold, but quite articulate, and perhaps she has a point.

But Anakin creates an even more convincing argument without saying a word. The change in him is obvious as he sits beside Obi-Wan, fingers gently pressed into the sick man’s wrist, observing the pulse that still beats there. The cloud of listlessness is gone from his eyes.

Were Anakin aware of how plainly he displayed what he was feeling he would have been mortified, but it’s nothing new to Master Che. In supervising the Halls of Healing, she is frequently privy to some of the more vulnerable moments in the lives of Jedi. She has no illusions about the way the Code is interpreted and bent by all members of the Order. After all, before they are Jedi, they are people.

“You have questions, I assume.” says Master Che as curtly as always, but with a degree of gentleness in her demeanor that wasn’t there before.

Surprise flashes across Anakin’s face. He takes a moment choosing where to begin. “Obi-Wan...it got really bad for a while...didn’t it?”

Che forms her answer carefully. There’s a good reason why she hadn’t been frank with Anakin from the beginning, but trying to protect him from the truth had certainly backfired. “Yes. He was septic and progressing into shock when they brought him in. His organs were starting to shut down, he was hanging on by the Force alone.”

Without realizing it, Anakin tightens his grip on Obi-Wan’s wrist. “So what happened?”

“Just that - he hung on. The antibiotics and fever reducers kicked in. We operated to remove a section of excessive bacta-grown tissue that was perpetuating the infection, and his blood panels have been looking steadily better ever since.”

“He’ll recover?”

“He’s got a long road ahead of him, Skywalker. But I think he's out of danger now. There may be some nerve damage, but nothing too severe.”

Padme’s fingers ghost across Anakin’s shoulder, and he returns a small smile.

“One hour,” the master healer concedes. “I will tell the staff and droids that normal visitation rules need not apply to you for that time. But,” she adds with a stern eye on Anakin, “If the situation becomes detrimental to anyone’s health – including yours, _especially_ Kenobi’s – I will not hesitate to remove you both. And at the end of such time I expect your full cooperation.”

Both parties nod their agreement. Anakin resumes his post by Obi-Wan’s side, and Padme pulls up a plastic chair next to him.

The sights and sounds of the ward fall into a pattern eventually. Obi-Wan continues to breathe against the ventilator now and then. Every few minutes one of those grotesque masked TB droids pricks Obi-Wan’s finger for a blood sample, then sometimes adjusts the equipment or medications.

Their hour is half over, and Anakin and Padme are sitting in companionable silence when Master Che and a dark-skinned human healer appear, the human eyeing the two onlookers curiously.  

After holding a hand a few inches above Obi-Wan’s chest to feel him in the Force, and clicking through some charts on the bedside monitor, Master Che instructs a nearby TB droid to turn the ventilator down.

“I’d like to start him on bacta submersion as soon as possible,” she explains to Anakin and Padme. “But first he needs to be able to breathe mostly, if not entirely by himself. We’re going to back off on the vent a little bit at a time to encourage him to pick up the slack. Make sense?”

For the first few seconds Obi-Wan lies motionless, not breathing until the vent suddenly kicks in. His sats start to tank as it happens again. Anakin watches in horror but the healers wait, calm and expectant.

Obi-Wan’s body quickly figures out what it’s supposed to do. His oxygen levels creep back to where they were. Soon he is breathing in rhythm with the machine, taking about every third breath on his own.

There are a few startling moments of silence, and the machine abruptly kicks in again.

“Master, you gotta breathe, remember?” Anakin takes Obi-Wan’s hand. Obi-Wan breathes.

“Can he hear us?” Padme asks.

“He is in a healing trance, but it’s possible,” the human healer replies.

Anakin feels their eyes on him but he squeezes Obi-Wan’s hand again, murmuring reassurance just in case his master is listening. “Told you I wasn’t going to leave, you know,” he tells Obi-Wan, so softly even Padme can barely hear. “I know you’re trying. That’s good.”

“He’s come a long way in the past few hours,” Master Che remarks.

The healers monitor Obi-Wan’s vitals carefully, but he is breathing more and more, even pushing back against the ventilator when he can.

“That’s encouraging, isn’t it?” whispers Padme to Anakin.

Anakin makes a noncommittal sound in the back of his throat, which Padme interprets to mean he agrees, but he can’t allow himself to let his guard down yet. She understands.

Master Che watches the exchange with some concern. Anakin is as taut as a bowstring where he sits, and the hand that is not holding Obi-Wan’s trembles uncontrollably on his knee. From his Force signature she can sense his elevated temperature and blood pressure. Something needs to change before stress-related illness sets in. Master Che would normally send Anakin back to his own quarters where he will be calmer, but…well, usually Obi-Wan is around to make sure he takes his medicine and actually goes to bed. She doesn’t like the thought of Anakin alone in this state, having a panic attack in an empty apartment, wandering the Temple consumed with anxiety, or Force knows what else.

“Senator, a word?”

Padme glances at Anakin like a cornered animal before schooling her face and following Che out into the corridor.

“You two care quite a bit for one another, yes?” The chief healer begins.

“I—” Padme stammers. “I have worked frequently with both Anakin and Obi-Wan over the past several years, I suppose you could say that we have become friends, that is…well, in a professional sense…”

“I am neither accusing nor threatening anything, please do not take it as such.”

“Threat—I don’t see that there is anything you could accuse me of, Master. The Jedi are permitted friendships, are they not? Anakin was my protector, he was concerned for my wellbeing, and perhaps I have come to be concerned for his as well. That’s the extent of it.”

“I believe you.” Master Che lies, thinking back on all the times Padme has argued, snuck or fibbed her way into the Halls of Healing when her ‘professional associate’ was injured. “In times of crisis, a perfect Jedi ought to draw strength only from the Force, not lean on more human impulses such as attachments.” Master Che states. “That said, Senator Amidala, I treat very few perfect Jedi. I understand how these things work.”

“I don’t—we never—”

“I _understand_.” Master Che insists, ignoring the color rising on Padme’s cheeks. “I have known Anakin since he was a padawan of nine, and I know he’s at his absolute limit right now. I need someone he trusts to help him.”

Padme hesitates.

“He desperately needs a rest and I know he won’t get it here. Not to mention trying to keep him in bed and away from Kenobi is a task I would not wish upon anyone.” Master Che offers Padme a wry smile. “I just need to be assured that he gets home and settles down. Can I rely on you?”

* * *

 

Anakin grinds his teeth until his jaw is sore, waiting to wake up from this confusing nightmare. Everything feels deceptively stable and safe now, but how can he trust it all not to collapse at the slightest provocation?

It occurs to him that he hasn’t heard the ventilator hum in a while. Obi-Wan seems to be breathing almost entirely of his own accord. A glance at the rapidly fluctuating bedside monitor tells Anakin that Obi-Wan’s heart rate is soaring. He presses the comm unit on the wall, asking for Master Che in a shaky voice.

The limp fingers entwined with Anakin’s suddenly go rigid, gripping Anakin’s hand as though it were a lifeline.

“Obi-Wan!” Anakin exclaims. “I’m here, Master. It’s Anakin.”

Obi-Wan’s eyes flutter and open.

A smile cracks across Anakin’s face. “Hi,” he says breathlessly.

Master Che marches into the room, half expecting a full-blown emergency. She’s pleased by the scene she finds instead.

“Hello, Obi-Wan,” says Master Che. Obi-Wan’s eyes dart wildly around the room. “You’re safe on Coruscant. You’ve got a tube in your throat to help you breathe, it probably feels a bit odd,” she informs him.

Obi-Wan looks between each of their faces in bewilderment, and his breaths become more labored and panicky. The TB droid rolls past Anakin and pushes a mild sedative through the IV line.

Obi-Wan painfully attempts to cough.

“Easy,” Master Che soothes him with a pulse of the Force. “I’m afraid you can’t have that out just yet, so try to relax.”

Obi-Wan lays back against the pillows, holding Anakin’s gaze with a glazed expression.

_[Padawan,]_

A familiar voice and a tug at his training bond brings tears to Anakin’s eyes. He surreptitiously blinks them away.

_[I’m here, Master.]_

_[It…hurts, Anakin, why does it hurt?]_

_[You’ve been ill. You have to get better, Master. I can’t—]_

Anakin’s unfinished thought echoes ominously in Obi-Wan’s mind. _I can’t—I can’t—_ what? _Lose you?_ That’s no way for Anakin to be thinking. _What had Qui-Gon said? ‘There is hope for him yet, but your loss would break him.’_

Obi-Wan’s own thoughts are too muddied to untangle that mess at the moment. The pain is so debilitating that he can’t even identify where in his body it’s coming from. He reaches instinctively for the Force to relieve it, gripping tighter to Anakin’s hand, feeling cool darkness return as his consciousness slips away.

 _[Obi-Wan!]_ “Obi-Wan?”

Obi-Wan is out cold just as quickly as he’d come up.

“Ah, well, that’s to be expected,” Master Che quips.

A tiny beep, and the ventilator whooshes to life.

“No!” snaps Anakin hoarsely. Obi-Wan inhales half a breath, then allows the machine to take the next several. “ _NO!_ ”

“Ani, it’s alright—”

 _This shouldn’t be happening!_ Anakin has practically climbed into the bed, taking Obi-Wan by both shoulders. A strong blue hand on his bicep yanks him back.

“Anakin Skywalker, enough!” Master Che thunders. “This is not a turn for the worse. He came up to see you, which took tremendous effort. You’ve tired him out. Now stop this.”

Anakin is on the verge of tears again, only holding them back because the master healer’s turquoise eyes are staring directly into his. Padme takes her hand off of Anakin’s shoulder and discreetly steps a more respectable distance away from him.

Master Che places a hand over Obi-Wan’s chest and closes her eyes, sending him back into a deep healing trance, and ups his painkillers to help him stay there.

“He’s overcome the biggest hurdle now, his immune system is starting to clear the infection. I expect the fever will break in the next few hours. This is going to take time, Skywalker, but have a little faith in him. Come, now.”

Anakin glances from Obi-Wan’s motionless form, still being forcefully pumped with oxygen by the tube in his throat. “But…” He glances from Obi-Wan to Master Che and back, a faint tremor still shuddering through him. He gives Obi-Wan’s hand a final squeeze, mumbling, “I’ll see you later, yeah?”

Anakin is surprisingly agreeable—or dead on his feet more truthfully—as Master Che hands him his discharge paperwork on a datapad for him to thumbprint and a cup with the three pink tablets.

“I want you to take those 15 minutes before bed, and I don’t want to argue about it, Skywalker,” she says, not unkindly. Anakin doesn’t notice her make eye contact with Padme behind his back.

* * *

 

The pneumatic door of Anakin and Obi-Wan’s shared quarters slides shut behind them, and for the first time in all the chaos, they are truly alone. Anakin staggers through the common area and into his room, where most of his things sit in cardboard boxes. He’d been in the process of moving to an apartment of his own when they were called away on the mission to Gavoros.

Anakin sits down stiffly on his bed. Padme follows and puts an arm around his shoulders, a gesture which quickly morphs into a full embrace as he collapses into her arms. Finally, Anakin lets go of the façade he’s been struggling to maintain in front of the soldiers and Jedi. It doesn’t matter if Padme sees him crumble like this, he thinks. With her he doesn’t have to pretend he’s not a rubbish knight, vulnerable to attachments. She already knows and she loves him in spite of it, maybe even because of it.

“He was so sick,” Anakin sobs, breaths coming ragged and throaty. “I couldn’t—I didn’t know how—he was so sick, Padme.”

Images and sounds flicker faintly in Padme’s mind. For a fraction of a second she sees blood on leather gloves and pooling by her knees. For a moment, she hears earsplitting alarms and tiny, rattling wheezes that can’t seem to catch their breath. Padme knows that if she had a single Force-sensitive bone in her body, she’d probably be reliving Anakin’s trauma in high definition.

“They said he’s getting better, Ani,” soothes Padme, holding him tight, his head buried in her shoulder. “He’s going to be alright. And you’re going to be alright.”

“I know!” Anakin whines. _This is just stupid, there’s nothing to cry about_ now _._

Padme just holds him, rubbing circles on his back, until the tears turn into hiccups and he starts to sit up.

“Better?”

Anakin nods. Blind to the Force, Padme still manages to sense exactly how he feels. She wipes a stray tear from his cheek with her thumb and plants a chaste kiss there.

“Does Obi-Wan know how upset and scared you were?” she whispers.

“I hope not,” says Anakin, baffled.

“Are you going to tell him?”

“Why? So he knows that I still let my emotions control me?”

“So he knows how much he matters to you,” she says.

Anakin decides that she clearly doesn’t understand how the Jedi code works, but he holds his tongue. He heaves himself up from the bed, mumbling something about a shower.

Standing under the hot water in the ‘fresher is almost a religious experience. Anakin can’t summon the effort to wash his hair but just standing there is enough. He can feel weeks of dirt rinsing away and it is nothing short of wonderful.

He emerges looking much more comfortable, clean and wearing fresh sleep clothes, but his bloodshot eyes and trembling hands betray him. Padme hands him a glass of water and the pills from Master Che with a hardened look, as if she expects him to resist. He doesn’t. He tips all three back in one go.

“Thank you,” he half-whispers, pulling his wife into another embrace.

“Of course, love,” says Padme. “ _Please_ rest. It’ll be alright.”

The drowsiness hits Anakin long before 15 minutes are up. Padme draws the blinds against the broad midafternoon light. Anakin tells himself it’s alright to sleep. Everyone is safe, Obi-Wan is on the mend, Padme is here, he’s home. Repeating those thoughts to himself, he gives in to the heavy combination of medicine and fatigue.

Padme waits beside him until he is finally, mercifully, asleep. She kisses his brow before she takes her leave.


	11. Chapter 11

“Where,” Obi-Wan croaks, tasting blood on the back of his tongue.

“The Halls of Healing, Master Kenobi. You’re going to be quite alright.”

Obi-Wan is groggy and propped up against a half-inclined medcenter bed. He was barely awake when they’d extubated him, but he still feels the raw ache in his throat from gagging on the tube as it was slid out. Afterwards he hadn’t stopped retching until a healer’s hand over his chest had relaxed his spasming muscles.

Talking is painful, so Obi-Wan is frugal with his words. “Anakin?”

“Just fine as well. He’s been loitering around as much as they’ll let him, worried about you.”

Obi-Wan nods wearily. He takes a moment while the healer is prepping his arm for a blood draw, just to rest his eyes.

* * *

 

Time passes in not in hours, but in a jumble of bleary moments. The next time Obi-Wan opens his eyes he is in a different room, and the lights are fuzzy-bright. Unfamiliar hands tilt his head forward and strap something over his face. The sensation sends a jolt of fear through his entire body, but he’s too weak to struggle against the several hands that hold him down.

 _Anakin_. Anakin’s face swims in his field of vision, Anakin’s fingers comb through his hair, Anakin’s whispers tease at the corners of his awareness.

“Shh, you’re going to be asleep while they dip you, okay? Shh, Master, it’s alright, it’ll be over by the time you wake up.”

Obi-Wan locks eyes with his grown padawan as he discovers he can breathe the damp, tangy air blowing through the mask. His distress dissipates as he starts to inhale the anesthetic.

“I’ll be right here. Go to sleep.”

Obi-Wan is lifted into a sitting position while being divested of both hospital robe and bandages. He imagines he feels the first touch of bacta on his toes before the world is swallowed up by darkness.

* * *

 

Obi-Wan awakens with the scent of bacta tickling his nose and some sort of commotion going on outside his door.

“—Just ask Master Che if you won’t believe me!”

“Master Che is off duty, you’ll have to come back when—”

“I need to see him _now,_ _please._ ” Anakin snaps, rudely pushing his way through the door. His face lights up when he sees Obi-Wan awake. Obi-Wan’s first thought is that he looks strong again. Clean-shaven and at least somewhat rested, Anakin is a far cry from the haggard figure that was the only constant in Obi-Wan’s fever-warped memories of Rion.

“Force, it’s nice to see you without so many tubes, Master,” Anakin remarks, coming to sit beside the bed.

Now that Anakin is closer Obi-Wan can see the creases of worry around his eyes. Surely things haven’t been that bad? Come to think of it though, everything after fighting the bounty hunters is a muddled blur.

“Anakin how…long…”

“Twelve days since we got home.”

Obi-Wan chokes. “No,”

Anakin nods solemnly.

The gravity of the situation is starting to dawn on Obi-Wan. He remembers that he had been wounded of course, but Anakin is looking at him like he’s a ghost. Jedi do not fear joining the Force, but realizing how close he’d come is sobering.

“What happened?”

Anakin explains as best he can, and Obi-Wan struggles to follow along. When he gets to the end, he asks, “…Can I see?” and gestures to where Obi-Wan was wounded. Obi-Wan obligingly shrugs one shoulder out of his flimsy hospital robe, baring the upper part of his chest.

A pockmark on Obi-Wan’s side from the fluid drain and the neat surgical incision along one rib are shiny and bacta-pink, they should fade away in a matter of days. But Obi-Wan will carry the lumpy, discolored blemish just below his collarbone for the rest of his life. It is not his first nor will it be the last, but this scar in particular will always be a reminder. Anakin reaches out and gingerly traces his fingers across it.

“I was afraid.” he suddenly confesses.

“Afraid?”

“I-I panicked. When you were so sick, and we were alone…I wasn’t in control. I didn’t know what I would do if...”

 _There is hope for him yet, but your loss would break him._ Obi-Wan shakes his head. “You would’ve done whatever you had to,” he rasps. “Whatever it took to survive.”

“No,” Anakin insists. “Without you—I couldn’t—I can’t—”

“ _You can_ ,” Obi-Wan barks, straining his tender vocal cords but ignoring the pain. He needs Anakin to understand. It’s irresponsible, it’s _dangerous_ to carry on this way.

“Try to see it from my point of view, Master. Would you really be so calm if it were me who’d almost _died_?”

“Anakin,”

“Would you?” Anakin demands, convinced that he’s made his point. Then his face falls. “ _Would_ you?”

“Doesn’t matter,” says Obi-Wan. Both he and Anakin put their lives in jeopardy on a regular basis. Luck or fate or the Force brought them home from Rion, but Anakin _needs_ to be prepared for the day when that won’t be the case. “You can’t let,” he coughs. “ _attachment_ disrupt your balance.”

“Oh.” Anakin’s mouth hangs open slightly.

Obi-Wan doesn’t comprehend why Anakin looks so utterly crestfallen. “You may think you need to cling to your attachments, but you don’t give yourself enough credit,” he says consolingly. “You’re stronger than you know, Padawan.”

But the mood in the room has shifted. “Is he allowed to have some water?” Anakin asks the TB droid shortly. Then to Obi-Wan, “I’ll be right back.”

Obi-Wan watches him leave. Something is troubling Anakin, something bigger than whatever Obi-Wan said wrong. It’s something that he has been catching glimpses of here and there for some time now.

When Anakin returns with water, he doesn’t look angry, just dejected. He puts the cup in Obi-Wan’s trembling hand and guides it to his lips.

“Thank you,” says Obi-Wan. “Now, what was that all about?”

Anakin shakes his head with a scowl. “M’sorry. You didn’t need me dumping all my problems into your lap as soon as you woke up. Just…maybe another day.”

Obi-Wan nods, wondering if Anakin is angry with him. Whatever the matter is, perhaps it would be best discussed in a more private setting. Maybe another day, indeed.

* * *

 

“Now touch each of your fingers to your thumb for me,” Che instructs. “…now the other hand,”

Obi-Wan finds to his confusion that the simple task requires more concentration with his left hand. His fingers tremble, slow to obey his commands. Che had been right, there was some nerve damage to his left side. She’d reassured him that none of this would be permanent.

“I’m surprised Skywalker hasn’t been in to pester you this morning.”

“I think I upset him yesterday.” Obi-Wan sighs. “Master, I’d like to be taken off these painkillers. ‘Can’t think straight. You know I know how to manage pain with meditation.”

“Very well,” Che concedes.

“How is Anakin handling this—truly?” Obi-Wan asks, sincerity deepening his voice

“Better now,” Che says as she takes out a stethoscope and guides him to lean forward so she has access to his back. “He was tearing himself to shreds when things looked uncertain for you. When we finally got a dose of Somaprin into him, it knocked him out for 18 hours. He claims he’s been sleeping normally since, which I suspect is not entirely true, but he’s coping.”

“He told me he had another panic attack,” says Obi-Wan.

“While you were off-world?” she asks, frowning. Obi-Wan nods. “That’s his first in some time, isn’t it?”

“As far as I know.” The last one Obi-Wan witnessed was about three years ago, but Anakin may have hidden others since. It’s an unsettling thought, but probable.

“He should see a mind-healer, Obi-Wan,” sighs Master Che. They’ve had this conversation before.

“I agree, but he won’t.” Anakin’s previous experience with the Jedi mind-healers has proven that, like the rest of the Order, they have little idea what to do with him. His emotional struggles are as unique as his troubled upbringing.

“His physical injuries are entirely healed, but kindly keep that information away from the High Council.” Che warns. “I want him on medical leave for another two weeks.”

“I’m glad to hear it.” Obi-Wan does not doubt that Anakin needs the time. They share half a smile. For 13 years they have been allies, working together to keep Anakin in one piece. It’s a relief to Obi-Wan that there’s still another set of eyes looking out for the boy _Not really a boy, though, is he?_

“And you, my friend, won’t be seeing another mission briefing for at least six months,” Che announces briskly.

“I suppose I can live with that,” Obi-Wan groans good-naturedly. “So long as there’s no more bacta.”

“Mind you don’t overdo and tear something open, and there won’t be.”

“I shall have to be a model patient then,” he smiles. He is still picking congealed bacta out from under his fingernails and the corners of his eyes, and suspects he will be doing so for weeks. It’s horrid stuff, but unfortunately it’s damn useful.

“You’ve never been a model patient in your life, Kenobi. No need to start now,” Che shoots back.

* * *

 

The next few weeks are a filled with challenges, and as predicted, Obi-Wan’s patience with being in the Halls quickly wears thin. It never fails to surprise the younger healers, who only know Master Kenobi as the mild-mannered councilor, but those who have dealt with him before pay no mind to his griping. One morning he is downright rude to a padawan because he’s frustrated and wants to go home. More true to character, he later tries to sneak out of bed, dragging an IV pole down the corridor on a quest to find and apologize to her.

Anakin is in Obi-Wan’s room more often than not, even sleeping there sometimes, but by the time two weeks are up the Council is already clamoring to have him back on active duty. He’s reluctant to be sent off-world while his former master is still recovering, but Obi-Wan assures him that it will be okay. There’s some lingering tension between them, but neither give voice to it.

Jedi heal faster than normal humanoids, but that’s little consolation to Obi-Wan when his legs tremble so much he has to lean on a walking stick just to get to the ‘fresher and back, and progress comes so slowly that he doesn’t notice it from day to day. But whenever Anakin returns from three or four days abroad, he sees the differences. Obi-Wan gets stronger. And finally, finally, he is ready to manage on his own.

Obi-Wan objects to the suggestion of a hoverchair but he agrees to keep the walking stick (and Anakin, in a rare feat of self-control, limits himself to _two_ Yoda jokes). Anakin is ready to lend a steadying hand if it’s needed, but Obi-Wan makes the journey down to the Temple’s residential levels without incident. At last, four months after they left for Gavoros, Obi-Wan is standing in that familiar doorway again with moisture welling in his eyes that he will later deny ever existed.

Obi-Wan sinks into a kitchen chair and heaves a contented sigh. He looks around, noticing that none of Anakin’s belongings remain. Through the open door of Anakin’s room, he can see the bed made up, unslept-in, the shelves empty.

“You’ve finished moving out, then,” Obi-Wan observes.

Anakin glances at his feet. “Yeah. Been sleeping at my place for a couple weeks now. So do you need anything, or—”

“Why don’t you stay for a minute? Put the kettle on, if you don’t mind.”

While the water heats, Obi-Wan indicates that Anakin should sit down. “Tell me what’s been bothering you.”

“What?”

“We’re not in public anymore and there’s nobody to overhear, so whatever it is, out with it, Padawan.” Obi-Wan encourages.

“It was nothing. It was dumb, I—” Anakin stutters. He’d just been…damn it all, he’d been _disappointed_ when Obi-Wan had implied that he didn’t feel attachment to Anakin. Anakin isn’t even sure why he’d assumed that would be the case, obviously Obi-Wan has a devotion to the Jedi code that his padawan has never been able to match. Attachments lead a Jedi closer to the Dark – how can Anakin wish that upon his master? Does it make him a rotten friend?

Finally he speaks, addressing the table between them so he doesn’t have to make eye contact. “I care about you, Obi-Wan, more than I should. And sometimes I just forget you don’t feel things that way, that’s all.”

“Is that why you were upset?” Obi-Wan sounds a bit insulted. “Because you don’t think I care about you?”

“I know you care in the normal way, like masters are supposed to. It’s not like you want to see me hurt, but if something did happen to me, you could just…go on. And I can’t, Master. Don’t tell me that I could have handled it, because I know I couldn’t’ve.”

Anakin can’t stop himself from wondering - what _would_ Obi-Wan do? Simply release Anakin and everything they had meant to each other into the Force? Would he stand at Anakin’s funeral pyre as stoically as he’d stood by Qui-Gon’s? And yet, Obi-Wan _had_ grieved for Qui-Gon. He hadn’t let anyone see, but Anakin had heard him at night through the shared wall between their sleeping chambers. It’s that memory that gives Anakin the courage to glance at Obi-Wan’s face. “Don’t be angry.”

“I’m not,” Obi-Wan assures him quietly. He takes a moment, gathering his thoughts. “Anakin, my regard for you is not out of duty as your master, and I’m sorry I ever allowed you to think that. You mean so much more to me. I love you.”

“But if—if—”

“Letting go is part of being a Jedi, Anakin. You know this. If I had to let you go, it would be harder than anything I’ve ever done. It’s painful even to imagine. But I would do it to serve the Order that we both pledged our lives to, because that’s the right thing to do. I know you don’t believe it, but if you had to, I reckon you would do the same.”

Anakin tries to swallow the lump of guilt in his throat. Obi-Wan believes in him, not knowing that Anakin was already put to that test. _He wasn’t there when my mother died, he doesn’t know what I did_. Anakin doesn’t know what would happen if Obi-Wan saw that side of him. “I wouldn’t.”

“I think you’re wrong. You have a few things to learn yet, Anakin, but you’re already a better Jedi than I. You don’t need my help anymore.” Anakin detects a rueful note in the last statement that is unlike Obi-Wan.

“I needed your help on that planet.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“I wanted it, then. I was afraid of not knowing what to do.”

“Anakin, you did everything just right. You kept us both alive.”

Anakin shakes his head, thinking back on all his mistakes, and how he’d given in to panic. “That’s because you don’t remember…if you’d seen me…”

“I remember feeling about as sick as I’ve ever been in my life. And I remember that it was…” Obi-Wan wasn’t raised to verbalize thoughts like this, and it doesn’t come easily. “…It was a great comfort to me, having you nearby. I wasn’t afraid when I knew you were there.”

This is new information to Anakin. He often compares himself to others, particularly Obi-Wan, when he feels too much or too passionately. He never stops to consider that other Jedi have their emotional vulnerabilities too.

Their teacups are empty, and the room has grown dark with the sunset. Obi-Wan turns on a light.

“Thank you,” says Anakin as he stands, without specifying exactly what for. Obi-Wan uses the table to push himself upright as well.

“I think you underestimate yourself, Anakin. But if you’re really concerned, perhaps you should talk to someone about it.”

“I am not seeing another mind-healer,” he says flatly.

“That is not what I was suggesting.”

“I’ll think about it,” says Anakin. Force knows he’ll have a lot to think about when he gets home tonight.

Anakin draws out the departure by fussing a bit, making sure the floor is cleared of tripping hazards, straightening up the kitchen counter and lining up all Obi-Wan’s medications on it, morning to the left of the sink, evening on the right.

“I am not completely helpless, Padawan,” Obi-Wan objects.

“You said you were gonna stop calling me that.”

“Maybe the day you remember not to call me ‘Master’.”

Obi-Wan is right. It will take them both some time to adjust. Anakin glances dolefully towards the door, and Obi-Wan’s contented expression darkens somewhat.

“Do you wish I wasn’t leaving, Obi-Wan?”

“Well, I certainly don’t want you to be a padawan forever. I believe that would constitute a failure on my part as a master.”

“But you’re still not happy?”

Obi-Wan puts a hand on his shoulder. “Anakin, I’m very happy. I’m proud of you. But I shall miss the way things were, yes.”

“But you’ll ‘let it go’ as the Force wills, is that it?” Anakin says with a cheeky grin.

The hand on Anakin’s shoulder turns into a playful shove. “Impertinent, as always!”

Anakin pauses thoughtfully. “I think I’m going to miss it too.”

Obi-Wan smiles.

“I could stay,” Anakin offers. “Just for tonight. I’ll have to run upstairs for some sleep clothes and my toothbrush.”

Obi-Wan can tell that Anakin feels conflicted about this too. He’d been so eager to get out on his own, until he’d been confronted with the prospect of actually living without Obi-Wan.

And before either Jedi makes a conscious decision to lean in, they wrap their arms around each other, squeezing tightly. Obi-Wan, being significantly shorter, ends up resting his head against Anakin’s chest. It’s confusing to his Jedi instincts, which balk at the unnecessary physical contact, but it’s nice. Anakin, for his part, was not raised with such instincts and feels right at home.  

One of the hardest parts about raising a padawan is you seldom know when it’s going to be ‘the last time’. Obi-Wan can’t pinpoint one specific memory as the last time he helped Anakin reach something from a high shelf or packed him a lunch to take to lessons, but those aspects of their lives had gradually drifted away. And he hadn’t known that the night before their departure for Gavoros would be their last in the conjoined quarters as Master and Padawan, but that seems fitting somehow.

“I think you should go, Anakin. Come visit tomorrow. I’ll cook breakfast.”

“Okay. I’ll keep my commlink on.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“I’ll…I’ll be fine too.”

Obi-Wan smiles. “I know you will.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we are at last! For those of you who fretted about poor Obi-Wan, here's the happy ending I promised to deliver. I leave it up to you to decide whether you think of this plot as canon-compliant, or whether the insight both Anakin and Obi-Wan have gained on this "camping trip from hell" will change the course of their futures.
> 
> To everyone who read or will read, comment and kudo: thank you! This fic turned out to be twice as long and at least twice as complex as anything else I've ever written, and I wouldn't have had the courage to write it without all of your support. And I especially have to thank my two beta-readers, Maeve Pendergast and SpencerBrown!


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